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Greek Lights Out... Literally
One for the "You can't make this stuff up" folder.
From Art Cashin:
Ya Can’t Make This Stuff Up - An interesting example of the problems in Greece may be seen in one of its recent attempts to collect taxes.
Property taxes were notoriously unpaid. The government decided to combine those taxes with your electric bill. The concept was simple. Pay your property taxes or your lights will be shut off.
The proposal brought outrage from the unions, who held mass demonstrations and sued in the courts. The courts put a stay on enforcement (putting the lights out) and questioned the whole concept.
The public, who had been paying their electric bills, refused to pay the new combined bills. Lacking any income, the power companies faced collapse. To avoid total chaos the government canceled the plan. What would Socrates think?
But does Greece at least have the ink to print tax forms yet?

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What would Cato the Younger think?
Smart meters.....it's the future.
Hey, they don't call them smart meters for nothing.
The bastards at the electric company are trying to force one of these on me, but everything in my Telecom background says they are highly hackable.
I guess I'll hold out as long as I can...
....backup generators.....cheaper in the long run
Every Greek household should have an emergency gyronator.
A watt?
OHMygod, you guys crack me up.
A James, what?
Technocracy, it's already in resource conscious California... radiating smart meters, the two-fer.
Make you sick AND monitorable. But as a confirmed third worlder, I have to laugh. Living in Bangalore, India's shining ode to technology, I lose power for at least 2-3 hours on the acverage summer day. A medium sized storm can mean 4-6 hours without. That is the reality for most of the rest of the world who does not have "Safe" nuclear power as some significant portion of their energy supply.
Get used to it folks, this current paradigm in everything is collapsing. Like a cheap house of cards...about time too, but the trasition is going to be something to participate in and behold.
A good time to get used to imagining a different future. The Electric Grid is literally and figuratively living on borrowed time. Terriritic action, CME's, Hackers.....
See a pattern?
ori
the-practice-of-detachment
Athenae delenda est!
"What would Socrates think?".................
Well for starters, I don't think he'd be raising his index finger.
Those €°^_=?¶¢ greeks, always using profanity.
The bastards at the electric company are trying to force one of these on me
Smart meters have been disasters almost everywhere they've been tried.
I don't have links (sorry), but you can look it up.
Our "smart" water meter mysteriously bills me for the same exact amount every month! I can't figure how exactly I could be using the exact same amount of water every single month for about the past six months. Something is fucked up there.
I had Verizon (wireless internet provider) bill me consecutively for over-usage on a 3G data service for the EXACT same number of bytes. This was after I'd had them shift my service plan down to a lower data rate. They claimed that it's "not unusual." Rather than go to jail or waste any more of my precious time I decided to eat the charges. Of course, these are the same lying bastards that I dealt with that claimed they didn't back up e-mail (they'd blitzed my e-mail) and that after hours traveling up their food chain had them admit that that was BS- they still made no effort to restore my e-mail. If not for the fact that my ONLY other option for data communications is satellite I WOULDN'T touch Verizon with a gazillion-foot pole!
Anyway... I think that it's a good idea for people to be able to ACCURATELY monitor their resource usage (I've got a water meter on my private system; it's given me good data for planning a rainwater collection system [should I chose this route]). And, I see nothing wrong with paying for what you use, BUT... this behemoth, centrally controlled corporate billing shit is nothing but trouble.
Is there a minimum monthly payment level? ie: there is a standard monthly charge of £xx amount and only after you use more than that does the smart metering come into effect and you get charged for your precise usage.
Basically, if you don't use more than £xx of water a month then they cannot justify (make a return from) their own investment in the more hi-tech meters in the first place.
If this is the case, then you need to use more water to get the benefit of smart metering, or you could sue them for mis-selling you the kit in the first place?
Just thinking out loud...
I had a very unlikely electric bill last December, it was $48 in October, $51 nov. $92 Dec. $56 Jan. $49 Feb, $46 Mar. and if I had put up a tree or lights or used the heat a lot more or something I would not be surprised by the near double bill, but I did not. I called PacPow and they swear it is a dumb meter. They say it is not wrong, that people bake and cook more for the holidays and it was cold in Dec and do I even know how a heat pump functions anyway? Insulting bullshit and lies. December was not colder than any other month this winter, and several of my neighbors were complaining to the landlady that their bills were similar outlyers.
I just think the power company has to add resources in December because of all the A-holes that bury their property in christmas lights and they fudge all the bills to pay for it. But doubling my bill to pay for the usage of others? Just another entity in my life I can no longer trust or expect honesty from.
You're not alone. That's a common practice all over the state I live in - Virginia. We've all become used to it and roll over... Once or twice a year, an utterly inexplicable high electric bill - two to three times what it usually is. And we just shut up and pay it to avoid the hassle of trying to get a straight answer. Sickening.
when you're a monopoly utilty, every day is christmas
Not to defend a power company - I've personally been off-grid since '79 here in Virginia - they only read the meters a couple of times a year - and that's why the odd super high bill - the rest are estimates...I know because their new guys sometimes come by and want to read my meter, heh. So I show them the system, they all say "you can't live on that kind of power source" but obviously...I have been for 30+ years.
Now - with the old meters (and I'm no fan of the new ones either, I may start a hacking business for those) - you could run some of them all the way around, which really messes them up. Or...A friend once took a couple months for walkabout, pulled his main breaker, and came back months later to a huge bill. Since the meter hadn't moved at all - they assumed he'd run it all the way around, plus whatever he'd used since he got back. Hosed, you really don't have much in the way of legal recourse.
And yes, there is a minimum power bill, but it's not honestly billed. If you use no power, you find all these little system maintenance charges and taxes and such like - some of which disapear if they're selling you a lot of power that month, but which pop up like magic when they aren't otherwise getting their "entitlement".
Another trick they do - when there's a movement to allow us to sell power back into the grid, for whatever excuse it's only worth about 2c a kwh to them, even though they are charging about 13c kwh going the other way, and you pay those nasty system fees going both directions - here in Virginia. As a Volt owner on the Volt network, I hear Arizona is a lot better that way FWIW. When they can't defeat that law with lobbying (with their state guaranteed profits, sweet deal eh?) - they simply raise up all the system maintenance fees and sell power dirt cheap. One of my neighbors fell for this and got a second jacuzzi and all electric heat. Then they defeated the fair sellback law, and then they felt fine charging 15c a kwh again, and my neighbor had to default their mortgage due to the $500/month bills she then got.
Fuck them. Get solar, and not that stupid microinverter sell back shit unless you live in AZ. Get batteries and a real off-grid system. When I started, I paid almost $10/watt for panels, and it paid off due to lower taxes and no electric bill in about 5 years (mostly the low taxes - did you know without power co power you're not a home, you're a barn and taxed like that?).
Now I just bought an upgrade to better charge my electric car - and it cost $1.47/watt. Nice payback on that with gas what it is...and airconditioning now possible even on cloudy muggy days. I didn't do one tiny bit of this to be green, really, that's just a free bonus that turns on some chicks. I did it for *power over my own fricking life* and not to have to work to pay some entitlement bill to a state monopoly that gets a guaranteed profit just to be alive.
And it worked. Having more money than you need is being rich. The main thing riches buy you is being able to do what you want. Pukes who live in the city, with a huge minimum living expense think it's about money because they are too stupid to realize you can live high in the boonies for a couple hundred a month by cutting the other half of the equation.
I'm telling ya - this way is better than just being rich enough to not mind being constantly ripped off - I can be proud, you can't, at least not honestly - you're the mark at the table, not me. If some vegan chick wants to blow me because I'm green, well, I won't tell her otherwise till after I get off, is all.
Good info here. Have you tried these Russian-made batteries that use nickel? They're supposed to last forever. They use them in railroad signalling and some have lasted more than 100 years. The big companies don't want you to know about them but they are still being made, I think in Georgia and China.
Oh that's easy. 86 year old Armenian figured it out. The techincal process is called a shovel.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12985082
Alternatively
Look for the R2D2 sized grey box on the side of the road in your area and back your truck up into it, or throw a chain around it and pull.
Either way, the fibre optic cable in the neighbourhood will shatter because it is glass cable. That should buy you a couple of months because all the cable will have to be replaced point to point. Which costs a fortune and takes forever to get it done right.
Fixed
Whoa! No redundancy?
Shows how fragile our System is. Asymmetric warfare... not thinking the technical side is going to come out on top in the end.
I've held out for over a year. So far I remain SkyNet free!
Solar panels man. Don't complain about the "service" you *demand* and how it's delivered. Create your own.
Backup generators are much more expensive in the long run and still tie you to gasoline etc. I know, I've been off the power grid since '79. And since no power company means no building code enforcement, I pay taxes on "sheds" instead of "homes" which more than pays for all that very quickly. They aren't named the power company for nothing - they have more than one kind of power and a lot of government has been delegated to them. Stop feeding the beast.
www.coultersmithing.com/forums
Look for alt energy.
Do you fabricate your own solar panels man?
No, but I made my racks and did my own system building and wiring. I could make panels, but "they" can do it lots better and cheaper.
Weirdly enough, most of my panels were made by BP - you know, the oil spill guys, who with their great timing shut down the factory just before the spill - they made them "too good" and weren't making money once the chinese got into this.
The ones I just bought were Schott - a German company but with the plant here in NM - and they were $1.47 a watt - a hell of a lot cheaper. The Chinese thin film panels are cheaper, but a rip as they only last a few years, and they use shell companies to go out of business rather than honor the warranty - ask Google about that one...they got totally fucked.
I use Xantrex main electronics for charge controllers and inverters - made by our friends in Canada. I've got one that's run continuously since '79 - I can't even count the 9's of reliability since you have to have at least one failure to calculate that!
Screw the power company - don't feed them a monthly entitlement. Screw green, this is about having power over your own life first. I have just one bill - internet. That's pocket change. I don't have to work for a living anymore to keep a credit rating and bills up to date. That's the real payoff.
There are bastards everywhere .
Can't we get smart politicians instead?
Oh, sorry. Contradiction in terms...
Yes the smart way would be to not include the tax as a line item but hide it in the actual rate and not mention anything to the public.
Even the great Archimedes would've been screwed over this taxing power debacle.
He's been displaced.
Big Ching beat me to it.
What happened to his Principal?
If Ben Franklin were alive today in Greece he would certainly just KITE a check to pay the power bill.
He'd get a charge out of it!
...anybody want a peanut?
Bathwater cut off
Old Arch was not dense.
"Can't we have people smart enough to NOT need/want/vote for politicians [and their corporate special interest baggage]?"
FIXED!
Attach the Tax bill to their Fire Insurance, if they don't pay , burn their house down
The US already has that policy, but with a twist. If you don't pay and your house starts on fire, they won't put it out.
http://www.wpsdlocal6.com/news/local/Firefighters-watch-as-home-burns-to-the-ground-104052668.html
Voltaire would've avoided charges, Georg Ohm would've resisted, & I bet Andre-Marie Ampere wouldn't have been current.
Ohm's law is pure resistance but is not current.
Ahhhaaaaahaha! Excellent.
I'm a sucker for Puns but that makes sense, because i'm a Punned-it.
ori
ORI has high capacitance!
Live, love, laugh!
Wow, what if you are a renter and your landlord does not pay that tax. Fortunately, there is renter's insurance, but a big PITA to move.
BTW, all of the fire and flood contractors like A&I and Paul Davis are a bunch of crooks. They know that there is insurance to be had, and run up the bills. Caveat emptor.
It's only a big PITA to move when you have a bunch of stuff. I can move quite easily with only an insurance check to pack.
You are 100% correct about the "restoration" contractors. Skip them entirely and hire a regular contractor, and don't tell them that insurance is involved.
A Greek Farce? Friggin crazy.
Cato the Younger would do what was best for Rome, and wouldn't give a shit about Greece.
Athenae delenda est!
Rotflmao
See http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite2_1_14/05/2012_442122 PPC to cut property tax from bills
and
Currently PPC is carrying out 2,500 to 3,000 power supply cuts daily to consumers with arrears. http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite2_1_16/05/2012_442486
They should do that here in Commiefornia
I thought it would have been all Hollywood, after getting a movie star for a Governor.
Which one? Arnie or are you thinking of Ronnie?
I'm sure Gov. Jerry Brown has busted a nut hearing about Chuck Schumer's new plan. Soon you'll see Cali issue state citizenship to all it's remaining tax slaves and then refuse to allow any expatriots who leave the state to denounce their state citizenship in order to avoid paying state tax on their incomes worldwide.
Then California goes lights out same day. All that unpaid property tax on condo schemes, housing, industrial all rolled into everyone's electric bill. It's a good plan, but so far in outer space Aliens question it's existence.
I don't think any household other than the extremely wealthy could take a 100k+ per month hit.
Even better, they'll yank your drivers license: http://www.accountingweb.com/topic/tax/california-tax-scofflaws-pay-or-l...
Just wait until the customer base shrinks to the point where the reversal of economies of scale result in prices that YOU cannot pay, yeah, that'll be fun!
Some of those people have probably fallen on hard times (assuming everyone's a deadbeat is a big mistake- when YOU fall they're going to remember you).
What would Socrates think?
Hemlock please! No more Troika!
What would Socrates think?
Pardon, I drank what?
Martin does it best
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdHp0FmEr78
More Hemlock please! This stuff is not working fast enough!
Do you have something stronger?
Quick Elixir 3 should work
Combining a philosophical quandry with an economic dilemma.
My head asplode.
End of the line, folks. Mind the gap
I love to vacation in the Greek Islands (paros antiparos mostly)
But I have to tell you, as a people, they are really living off the "we created western civilization" thing.
They don't work, but then again I'm there in the summer. Most of Europe doesn't work in the summer. Must be nice
Surreal.
They could try pulling that same stunt with the water bill instead...
Lights Out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztnn_hSGtg0
Let's Dance!
Bruv ... that shit is so gay. So gay even Obama cant marry that.
Oh boy thanks for giving the US states an idea. Actually they already have a solution........just sell your house. 3 states are working on outlawing propterty taxes and I hope it passes. Gov't needs to shrink big time. Public workers are one group who absolutely refuse to join the depression and can just sell your ass off to keep what they have. The rest of the country would also like to retire you assholes.
Public workers are one group who absolutely refuse to join the depression and can just sell your ass off to keep what they have.
Yep. The 40 are supporting the 60.
Wake the fuck up, there is no public/private. There are only owners who want you to keep paying for their bad behavior. Can you say socialization of losses and privatization of "profits" to a select few? I knew you could and the money changers thank you.
Isn't that what he just said, or is the Endone I'm swallowing messing with my head? The 40 are supporting the 60 and the 60 will get it any way that they can. Just try travelling through Tennessee with a wad of cash in your car. The cops there will conficate your dough, ill gotten or not, and then demand a portion of it if you can legally defend your right to your property. Proving your innocence is the long-winded game they make you play, hoping that you'll exhaust yourself with effort and legal fees. They publicly defend their actions as "The money COULD be used to buy drugs". Whatever means necessary to keep themselves fed. First they'll tax you, then when their revenues from tax get funneled to other priorities, they release their dog and overtly steal from you. That's in line with what I got from his post, anyhow.
"Isn't that what he just said"
No. "Owners" are "few."
The rest of the country would also like to retire you assholes.
I think they may not retire as expected....when their pension funds finally implode. Obviously they are living for the moment getting all they can now but not realizing that the future is not looking so bright. Another lights out event coming.
Then again, Maryland voters just APPROVED a tax on themselves if they make over 100K.
This money is being used to prevent cuts to state worker salaries and benefits.
This is one of the most stupid votes ever.....second only to the vote that Massachusetts made AGAINST eliminating their income tax in 08. Hoy...
I would question who counted the votes.
The under-100k's are the majority and people will always vote for a tax that is on other people.
WWHSD?
(what would homer simpson do?)
How will the propaganda get through without electricity?
They didn't say people are getting cut off. They just aren't paying. That's different.
"How will the propaganda get through without electricity?" they will have to go back to dropping pamphlets from helicopters
The bernanke currently has all helicopters on reserve for some special mission.
They will throw it out of the same helicopter.
They'll just print the propaganda message on the back of the new $1,000,0000,000 bill.
I like what Visy, a big Australian packaging company is doing better. They hired Hell's Angels to collect.
If they run out of INK they can call up Zimbabwe - they probably have a shitload leftover.
They can always print in octopus ink, or are the fisherman on strike ?
Some of the new paciific octopus ink glows in the dark too.
Too bad Americans don't follow some of the Greek examples of "disobedience". For all the big gun talk in U.S. we won't see any of this. That is why over 7 million could die quietly during the great depression without a peep from the population.
Check, and mate....again u bitch ass bankers...
Oh this sounds like a back room GS adviser strategy. I wonder how much they paid for this ? lol
Their souls.
They sold their souls long ago - they have probably rehypothecated yours and mine.
Fractional reserve souls?
And those yet to be born.
How many articles per week does ZH post about Greece leaving the union? Doesn't matter, because it isn't going to happen.
Carry on, ZH.
You've put your money where your mouth is on this one?
Dont think he would want to put his money up someone else's back side.
Will you come back and say sorry if they do?
The Taxation Conundrum
Problem: Population that doesn't pay taxes
Solution: Procurement of taxation through a bill of basic utility enforced on a populace that doesn't pay taxes.
Outcome: Fairly expected
Experiment: Failure
Reason: Applying an illogical solution to an impossible problem
This reminds me of when my friend put an outbuilding on his property that turned out to be encroached upon the county building setbacks. They told him to move the building or face consequences. He thought, 'what can they do?' They went to the power company and had his power shut off. So he tore the building down.
Electical power is the chief form of government dependency. It really would be a nice feeling, to be self-sufficient with one's electricity.
Hence the forced installation of 'smart meters' on your house. Just happpened in our county herre in FL.
Lights out!
Turn on the radio...
Turn that shit off!
Ummmm....it goes like this.....
Lights out
Guerrilla Radio
Turn that shit up
They have a PHYSICAL MONEY problem...
They won't be able to physically print the Drachma
A good example of the power is in the people if they would just use it.
I know! Reparations are the answer here! After all, as the Nazis were to Europe's Jews, the global banksters are to the People of Greece. Sauce for the Goose and all that....
Just have Blankfein and Dimon cover Greece's electrical bills. For the next 100 years or so.
Sound about right?
my city does this with sidewalks. they randomly repair sections in front of your house at $300 bucks a section. if you don't pay your sidewalk bill, they tack it on to your property taxes. so, if you don't pay for it, they get your house.
My "You Can't Make This Stuff Up" folder is getting really, really stuffed.
Power to the people! (Giggle)
Turn off the power and the 1% can't communicate to the 99%. Yah, that'll work just fine. The more this gets dragged out the worse it'll get. Expect more weird stories.
Let's cut the power.
With all electronic cash, ID, access things rendered useless; they will just cut into their own flesh. Total surveillance and control gone, people left on their own devices, peacefully so as in the supposedly dark ages.
All I will miss is ZH.
So why is the situation in Greece so much worse than in the USA ? Largely because the US Government prints US Dollars and because Americans are oblivious to Parking Meters in Chicago being sold to Middle East oil kingdoms.
The Greeks KNOW their political and financial elites are corrupt whereas Americans simply ogle at them on widescreen (Made in China) TV sets
By knowing what happened in indebted Greece, where loan sharks created “bubbles” and the current inhuman debt, one can understand the inhuman plan in total ...understand where this plan started just to bring all states at the same end ...understand how this type of plans are established...
The over-profits of the shark loans in the USA not only did not turn their dollars into inflationary money, but also they were multiplied and exported abroad in the form of “investments”. The illegally “increased" dollars of the internal USA economy become tons of “investments” abroad. FED printed cheap money and loansharking multiplied this money in an unnatural way within the American economy boarders and they discarded them abroad so that they did not threaten USA.
USA became the first state in the world with artificial “breathing” ...the first state that burdened the international economy with its “breathing” ... and this is where everything started ...this is where the current shabbiness started, Loan sharks that are international today and “hide” behind the vague term of “Markets” are in fact the old loan sharks of the American market. They by controlling the USA monetary system “pumped in air” constantly in order to make profit from the USA “breathing”.
http://eamb-ydrohoos.blogspot.com/2012/01/global-debt-crisis.html
Authored by PANAGIOTIS TRAIANOU
It's called Stockholm Syndrome sprinkled with rich gooey Apathy.
It will only get worse with time.
6 handle on BAC bitchez.. again
Indeed. French banks getting crushed, too.
Jackpot, bitchezzz!!!
I think it's pretty funny when 'they' show the debt clock on the various propaganda arms and point to the close to 16t in debt for the US National debt but dead center of the screen is the TOTAL US DEBT which is closing in on 60 Trillion! Very close to 200K per individual citizen (what about mexicans?) and then close to 700K per family.
And, if you look at interest paid in 2012 (less than half the year yet) - close to 4T, just in debt payments!
Seems to me that might be the highlight you'd want to point to...
If you are not preparing to take care of yourself....you are failing yourself, and the rest of us.
P.S. - On Drudge this AM, Run on Spanish banks, too, 1 billion over past week
I would like to know when the interest on the TOTAL US DEBT exceeds median household income...
a sovereign in the world of fiat should have
no need to tax, they have a technology called
the printing press (or the digital equivalent).
exit the euro." so-crates
the only way out is out.
and they can back up their own new currency
with derivatives they create in their own
shadow.
Loooooooong extension cord sales on the rise. Buy in now.
Good example of "A government big enough to give you everything you need, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have...."
Tax ouzo bitchez
The more important question is whether they have enough ink to print new drachmas.
I think, therefore I can't see!
Fight the power, these greek tax slaves have a lot of guts fighting expropriation by their owners in Athens
Is Art Cashin saying this is bad? That's straight from the Republican playbook 'No New Taxes.'
I thought German tax collectors were taking over from the Greeks, and they brought their own ink and paper? Whatever happened with that plan?
here in ohio the state is forcing everyone to go to a second tier supplier, like first energy, for you power and gas. then its a retail transaction and the state can charge sales tax on your utility bills.
i guess they really need the money.
Socrates would attribute the root problem to members of society falling to their lowest form which was when money was elevated to the status of God, worth making sacrifices for that other things would not be, and became the end goal seen as a good in itself to be achieved in interactions. He would state at this time those with money would naturally encourage the licentiousness of the young men, or the immature, and encourage them to make bad decisions to get them into debt. He would argue for printing of nomisma - money given value by governmental decree - ie the drachma - and that let Greeks know that those that found themselves in debt would face inflation that would eventually force them to pay if they avoided payment by direct means.
Of course I'm drawing this from many sources by here's a fun one, Socrates was a funny guy:
STREPSIADES
Socrates! my little Socrates!
SOCRATES loftily
Mortal, what do you want with me?
STREPSIADES
First, what are you doing up there? Tell me, I beseech you.
SOCRATES POMPOUSLY
I am traversing the air and contemplating the sun.
STREPSIADES
Thus it's not on the solid ground, but from the height of this basket, that you slight the gods, if indeed....
SOCRATES
I have to suspend my brain and mingle the subtle essence of my mind with this air, which is of the like nature, in order clearly to penetrate the things of heaven. I should have discovered nothing, had I remained on the ground to consider from below the things that are above; for the earth by its force attracts the sap of the mind to itself. It's just the same with the watercress.
STREPSIADES
What? Does the mind attract the sap of the watercress? Ah! my dear little Socrates, come down to me! I have come to ask you for lessons.
SOCRATES descending
And for what lessons?
STREPSIADES
I want to learn how to speak. I have borrowed money, and my merciles creditors do not leave me a moment's peace; all my goods are at stake.
SOCRATES
And how was it you did not see that you were getting so much into debt?
STREPSIADES
My ruin has been the madness for horses, a most rapacious evil; but teach me one of your two methods of reasoning, the one whose object is not to repay anything, and, may the gods bear witness, that I am ready to pay any fee you may name.
SOCRATES
By which gods will you swear? To begin with, the gods are not a coin current with us.
STREPSIADES
But what do you swear by then? By the iron money of Byzantium?
SOCRATES
Do you really wish to know the truth of celestial matters?
STREPSIADES
Why, yes, if it's possible.
SOCRATES
....and to converse with the clouds, who are our genii?
STREPSIADES
Without a doubt.
SOCRATES
Then be seated on this sacred couch.
STREPSIADES sitting down
I am seated.
SOCRATES
Now take this chaplet.
STREPSIADES
Why a chaplet? Alas! Socrates, would you sacrifice me, like Athamas?
SOCRATES
No, these are the rites of initiation.
STREPSIADES
And what is it I am to gain?
SOCRATES
You will become a thorough rattle-pate, a hardened old stager, the fine flour of the talkers....But come, keep quiet.
STREPSIADES
By Zeus! That's no lie! Soon I shall be nothing but wheat-flour, if you powder me in that fashion.
SOCRATES
Silence, old man, give heed to the prayers.
You asked!
I like the Greek people more and more every day.
500-200 BC I would have agreed with you.
Regrettably, today, most of the people at this country are of a such low standing, in any sense of the word, that the ancient Spartans would have thrown 99% of them at birth in order to purify this nation and elevate the culture to some meaningful level equal to their ancestral heritage.
It is not that they just refused to pay taxes. They refused to pay these new taxes after their family income has been halved, after so many have lost their jobs, after 1 out of 4 businesses closed in about a year, and after about a billion new taxes were piled on them. They do not have the money to pay. Now, that is a separate issue from the problem that always existed, mainly with the wealthy and with the collusion of the government as well as with certain self-employed professionals, of tax evasion.
Lights out! Lets have a Tonga party!!!
Invite the Italians too, along with their Venetian Masks and some hot blooded Espanyols. BUT keep the Irish hooligans out, for f's sake!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEk3CFxtLRs
When the batteries run out, time ta wax old school.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve8obdl_irE
So much for light at the end of the tunnel.
If Greece sees light at the end of the tunnel it will be because they dug too deep and reached hell.
oh bobby, you're killing me over here.
so die already...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_g5zw5vRtU