226 posts shown.
Jeremy Garcia52 said:I’m living in the States, specifically in Miami. I work for a metal fabrication firm, U-Profiles. My shift is 10 hours long—within that stretch, you get two 15-minute breaks and one hour for lunch. For the most part, I’m happy with my paycheck and the working conditions; an average salary here can cover your monthly expenses with enough left over to save a little. I read somewhere that the highway tolls were reinstated early, and the subway and bus systems are raking in massive amounts of cash daily 🙂 I don't want to step out of my lane since I'm no expert, but the traffic levels are hard to miss. Recently, a local coworker mentioned that a treaty signed after World War II is set to expire in 2023. This agreement allows ships to pass through certain Turkish territory for free. I didn't quite grasp the technicalities, but according to him, once that contract expires, Turkey is going to start charging a fortune for that route 🙂
You’ve got it wrong. He’s likely talking about the construction of the Istanbul Strait project and the idea that they can bypass the Montreux convention signed back in 1936. Based on everything I know about Russian foreign policy, the Russians aren't going to let that happen.
The Russians would probably jump straight into a war. They barely avoided a conflict last time, but following that tension, Turkey joined NATO—which was basically just the alliance with the US at the time.
As for the Istanbul Strait, once you dig one meter of a canal, you can look at a crowd of workers on a job site and predict the completion date will be roughly ten years out, give or take.
The Istanbul Strait is actually a solid project; Turkey could likely fund it entirely on their own. It would significantly ease the congestion in Istanbul if it were built. For what it's worth, Sultan Suleiman and the architect Mimar Sinan had a plan for building it all the way back in 1560.
Melissa King79 said:Can anyone tell me if there's a way to get a mortgage in America if you don't work domestically or within the US? I've been working in the States for 20 years now and I'm looking to move back home, but I'd rather not pay cash upfront—I'd prefer to put down a down payment and finance the rest. Over here, it's standard to drop 20% and spread the rest over 15 or 30 years. Does anything similar exist back home, and do banks actually approve loans when your income is coming from outside the country? Thanks in advance...
They totally do. If the place is $100,000, you just hand them $100,000 as a savings deposit, and then they'll let you $216667 buy the place at a rate that's basically just 1% higher than what your savings account earns.
Just kidding, obviously.
http://www.bankofamerica.com/mortgages/foreigner-financing-options
Benjamin Taylor6 said:SAS Vektor wasn't "stolen." It was just... let's call it "survey-based privatization." 🤔😲🤔😁
The reality is that right after 1995, the parent company, SAS Inc., was privatized. The government held the majority stake at the time. Then, some announcement went out asking small shareholders to decide where they wanted their shares to end up—whether they wanted them in SAS Vektor, Marina-Dalmacia, the charter fleet, the Engine Factory, or kept within the main SAS entity.
They pitched it to us as a mere survey. After all, the company was a single conglomerate with multiple divisions anyway.
But then, the director and a few of his little cronies decided they wanted the shares tied to the yacht-building division. They managed to snap up shares from a bunch of small-time holders—people who were practically begging for any scrap of value before they lost everything—by paying roughly 20% of the nominal value.
That small group ended up pooling enough shares to cover about 70% of the estimated value of the SAS Vektor division. Once they had that, they just headed over to the capital, pulled some strings, and triggered the spin-off. And just like that, SAS Vektor was detached.
The charter fleet was split off using the exact same playbook. They bought most of it using shares they acquired for maybe a quarter or a fifth of what they were actually worth.
As for our slice of the SAS pie?
We currently have about a third of the machinery we had twenty years ago—and keep in mind, those machines are, on average, thirty years old.
During the afternoon shift, there’s this palpable sense of dread being in the building. You see one worker for every hundred meters of floor space.😲
There are no more snack breaks, no more air conditioning, and hell, there isn't even heat in the winter. Unless you're standing in that tiny one-fifth section of the building where the coordinates are actually functional.
Why didn't you sell your shares when you had the chance? But look, I'm in the same boat. I was promised 10,000 shares in Sun Coast as compensation. When I finally tried to sell them for $107, the courts blocked the transaction. Years later, the lawsuit was tossed out as "unfounded," and the share price plummeted to $6.75. According to the legal system, I haven't suffered any loss because I still technically hold the same number of shares. Since then, I wouldn't touch a stock in the US even if they gave it to me for free. I'm just waiting for some miracle where someone buys out Sun Coast and offers me at least 50$20 per share.
Benjamin Taylor6 said:I am completely ready:
I've got a 3-meter plastic paddle for rowing and a 500-meter net for casting in the shallows. Plus, I have a 200-meter permit the government handed me for free. I'll sell my grandmother's house, renovate my father's old shack—which, mind you, doesn't even have clean titles—and slap some solar panels on the roof. That way, there's no property tax, and no bills for electricity or water (just a water truck).
All I need to do is buy five goats and a billy goat, and the crisis is solved. I have a few acres of scrubland at my disposal. Naturally, I'll also be following in my ancestors' footsteps.
The rest of the money goes to the kids so they can find it easier to settle outside the US. (They already have degrees, so they might as well enroll in advanced English, German, or French courses).
Jokes aside. The IMF isn't going to hit me too hard because I work for a private firm where I just pull in a raw salary. Personally, I'm all for the IMF.
Up until now, they usually cut a little bit from everyone so that, in the end, the public sector still ends up with way more than those who actually create value.
So, the IMF might actually break that cycle: by cutting everyone equally just so we maintain the same proportional size of the public sector.
And that means cutting everyone's wages in the government by 10%, rather than hitting the public sector with a 30% cut.
The company I work for makes grinders and drills for Germans: http://www.taff-shop.com/media/catal...1001000000.jpg
They handed us a measly $10,000 for our 80% share of the job—only to watch them flip it later for $40,000. I guess they really know how to leverage their "brand name" and that tiny 20% stake in the product to squeeze out a massive profit. It's almost impressive, in a cynical sort of way.
And get this—the machine actually says Made in Germany on it. Not this little label here, though: http://www.goedicke.com/fileadmin/us...ke/7-34303.jpg
Meanwhile, the buyer is walking around all proud, bragging about how he owns a high-quality German drill. 😁
I was at your old firm twenty days ago—the one that got stolen from you, SAS Vector, Cop.
It’s pure misery; the plant is empty and there’s just one worker left rattling things around for himself. Is your part of SAS just as hollow?
And honestly, I feel for your old director and what he's dealing with after the good old days. The man behind the local economic miracle is losing an apartment worth $1.2 million.
Per the Zadar Municipal Court Enforcement Department, a two-story home with a yard totaling 7,200 square feet is hitting its first public auction on June 12th. It belongs to the well-known local businessman Stanislav Antić. Antić founded the SAS factory, which once drove the entire regional economy. By exporting specialized machinery—mostly to the former USSR—he funded the Pediatrics Department at Zadar General Hospital, the California marina, the SAS Vector shipyard, and even the current headquarters for OTP Bank. Antić also served two terms as a city councilman and led an independent ticket in the previous local elections.
Matthew Rodriguez9 said:And like, is the IMF supposed to be this perfect magic fix? 🙄
The IMF is strictly a last resort. They don't just show up if a country can manage its own debt on the open market.
Charles Ramos7 said:What are you getting at? That we should have banned German cars (while simultaneously voting to join the EU)? And again, what "dumping" are you talking about when anyone can just go out and buy the car they want?
No, my point is we should have just bumped up the excise taxes a bit higher than they do in Denmark and called it a day.
Nicholas Ross38 said:Let’s pivot back to the main point—is it too late to start making moves before the IMF comes knocking at our door? I mean, look at this photo showing most Americans just hanging out at coffee shops... In my previous post, where I linked to Nigel Farage's page, he mentioned how a nation might fight for a thousand years for independence, only to hold onto it for maybe twenty years before handing it all over to the EU bureaucracy. So, I guess sitting at a cafe should feel like a celebration of freedom after all that struggle, but that’s probably a whole different conversation entirely. The real issue is that the IMF tends to drain countries dry and "constrains" us with their mandatory reforms—you know, the usual stuff regarding education, public administration, and so on—yet you all seem to agree that we actually need them and that they’ll be our saving grace.
Obviously, government spending has to be slashed. We need to cut pensions by 20-30%, drop civil servant salaries by 20-30%—except for healthcare, strictly because those people can just move abroad—and cut transfers to various civic associations, etc.
Public sector wages really ought to be 20% lower than what you'd make in the private sector with the exact same degree. You have to account for the fact that a government job is inherently more secure.
Nicholas Ross38 said:Maybe America could have gotten things moving without all these cuts and reforms—but I guess that’s up to the people, isn't it? It seems we just need outsiders to come in and tell us exactly what to do and how to do it, even if those measures are absolutely brutal and end up leaving us high and dry.
Sure, why not? Just move 300,000 Germans into the Midwest and send 300,000 Midwesterners over to Germany. Or just deport our politicians to Finland and swap them out for Finnish ones. Whatever works.
Nicholas Ross38 said:The IMF in America—what’s their deal lately? The International Monetary Fund is apparently losing sleep over the fact that the US is still stuck in this recessionary funk. They're pointing fingers at our uncompetitive exports, corporate debt levels, and the massive mountain of public sector debt. I guess they're worried. Are you guys actually ready for whatever austerity measures and "reforms" the IMF decides to throw our way? How are you planning to stay off their radar when the crackdown hits?
What's the big deal with the IMF? They should have been here ages ago.
Kimberly Nguyen70 said:Here I am again, though the news is a bit different this time.
My fiancé just had an abdominal CT scan, and it shows a metastasis on the liver—the largest one is 20 mm.
There's also a round lesion visible in the left adrenal gland, but they didn't specify what it is.
Then it mentions enlarged lymph nodes, and there's a 35 mm metastatic deposit on the peritoneum just below the left diaphragm.
Everything else looks normal; the CT shows nothing on the pancreas. He also had an endoscopy and a colonoscopy, and those came back clear.
The oncologist suggested doing a CT-guided liver biopsy before we decide on the next steps...
I’m a little terrified that things might take a turn for the worse while we wait for all this to play out... but we've already started working on boosting his immune system.
I don't know...
Angela Wright, what’s your take on the situation now?
A CT scan rarely catches cancer effectively, and when it does, it's usually late in the game. I personally went for three different CT scans within a 20-day window before my diagnosis; then an MRI flagged potential pancreatic cancer, and a PET scan confirmed it.
With pancreatic cancer, back pain usually hits during the final stages. If you can eliminate the pain by crouching down and leaning your head forward, then the diagnosis isn't great.
Tumor markers are completely unreliable. Blood tests for bilirubin, AST, and ALT provide some indication of issues, but they're far too broad.
The best and only truly reliable diagnostic tool is a PET scan. I've had two PET scans so far. The first one caught the cancer with millimeter precision, and the second one confirmed the surgery was a success.
Adenocarcinoma of the pancreas and surrounding tissue is a small but lethal cancer. Most of the time, it's diagnosed too late—once it passes 1 cm, it's usually inoperable.
My advice is to insist on a PET scan. Even if you don't want to pay full price, you can often negotiate the cost starting from $2500. Honestly, I'm not sure how much your oncologist is actually involved in your specific case. I handled everything through the Internal Medicine Department, and while I was inpatient, my doctor coordinated directly with the surgical clinic for the pancreatic operation. I was sent for a PET scan to pinpoint the exact location of the cancer, and once the results were in, I was in surgery within 24 hours.
Nancy Gomez26 said:Living without money sounds fine in theory, but how does one accumulate—or rather, preserve—the value of past labor? If I perform work today, does it simply vanish into a collective pool, trusting that the community will return the favor whenever I might need it? It feels uncomfortably close to socialism. And in practice, that usually translates to inefficiency and penalizing high achievers to subsidize those with less capability.
The issue isn't the currency itself. The issue lies with the people who claim an exclusive right to print it without contributing any nominal value, while constantly flooding the market with more. This process devalues the labor we've already stored in our savings, effectively eroding both the cash in our pockets and the balances in our bank accounts right now.
At the end of the day, gold and silver look like solid bets. Even renting out a condo on the Florida coast isn't a bad way to invest.
Andrew Barrett4 said:I’m just saying, there’s no way Andrew Barrett4 is going to walk away from those hard-earned dollars he worked so damn hard for, just to throw them down the drain for the sake of some issue over in Greece. 😁
I suppose I should try to give you all a little perspective here. 😬
Nobody is going to ask for your opinion. Go read the actual laws for once. What happens when today's kids decide they aren't interested in funding pensions or paying for the healthcare of elderly grandparents? They took out massive loans and stuffed their pockets with gold while we were left holding the bag—well, if they want us to foot the bill now, they can just deal with it on their own.
mellownomad said:You would likely speak differently if you were the one being asked to surrender part of your own savings to bail out Greece.
Besides, you keep drifting away from the actual topic.
I fail to see how your statement relates to my comment. You advocate for others to stop importing Middle Eastern products—essentially oil—but when I ask if you are personally prepared to live without using it, I get two or three nonsensical answers that dodge the question entirely..
It is the same thing here; you mention your savings, yet suggest that Germans, Dutchmen, Danes, Frenchmen, and Englishmen should forfeit their savings just to prevent some kind of war..
Please, at least try to separate the part where you call on others to do exactly what you aren't willing to do yourself.😁
As the saying goes: put your money where your mouth is.
By the way, Germany has paid off its debts.
That is exactly the kind of socialist mindset I am talking about. Beyond wanting someone else to give up their claims, they would also want someone else to hand over their savings (very much in the style of Piketty).
If everyone agrees to chip in, then fine, I'll do it too. Honestly, it's not a bad idea: just hike fuel prices by a dollar per gallon across the entire European Union and use that to pay off all the debts in Greece, America, Portugal, and those Eastern countries.
Or, we could just print more money and let the Federal Reserve buy up government bonds to extend maturities to, say, 20 years. That would be the fairest way to handle this; the poor wouldn't even notice, while the wealthy would take a hit, but they're capable enough to recover. As for the Germans, Dutchmen, Danes, Frenchmen, and Englishmen giving up their savings? I'd rather they lose their savings than the future of their children and grandchildren.
Thomas Piketty says Germany has never actually paid back its debts, so they really have no business lecturing anyone else about fiscal responsibility.
I’m genuinely worried that conservatives—specifically Germany—are going to tear apart Europe and kill off the whole idea of the European Union. It all stems from their shocking, total lack of historical perspective, according to Thomas Piketty. He laid it all out in a recent interview with The New York Times.
The author behind the massive hit *Capital in the 21st Century* sat down for an interview with *The New York Times* to weigh in on the current austerity measures being pushed across Europe. According to Thomas Piketty, the fiscal policies that Germany is forcing upon the rest of the European Union are a total disaster.
German history should carry a lot of weight for Americans today. Just look at the trajectory of national debt: there were times when the United Kingdom, Germany, and France all found themselves in positions similar to what Greece is facing now—some were actually even more heavily leveraged. The first major lesson here is that sovereign debt isn't some modern phenomenon. There have always been numerous ways to manage and pay down those debts, not just the single path that leaders in Berlin and Paris want you to believe is the only option, according to Thomas Piketty.
The "German economic miracle" wouldn't have been possible without debt forgiveness.
According to Thomas Piketty, Germany stands as the ultimate example of a nation that never truly settled its foreign debts in full. It’s a pattern that repeated itself following both World War I and World War II. Yet, there’s a certain irony to it all. As Piketty points out, Germany was frequently quick to demand payment from everyone else; they insisted on massive reparations from France following the Franco-Prussian War at the tail end of the 19th century.
When I hear Germans lecturing everyone else about their "moral obligation" to debt and how strictly they believe every cent must be repaid, I can't help but laugh. It’s honestly one big joke. Germany is a country that hasn't exactly been known for paying back what it owes. They really have no business trying to lecture other nations on fiscal responsibility. That's just how Thomas Piketty sees it.
He points out that history has essentially boiled down to two distinct ways of handling debt. You’ve got the brutal method currently being forced upon Greece, and then there's the much smoother, far more lenient approach that Germany used to favor.
Thomas Piketty lays out two ways to settle the bill. One way was demonstrated by the British Empire back in the 19th century, following those massive, expensive wars against Napoleon. It’s a slow burn—exactly the kind of sluggish approach they’re currently suggesting for Greece. Back then, the Empire paid off its debts through brutal fiscal discipline. It worked, sure, but it took forever. We're talking over a century where the British essentially shaved two or three percent off their entire economy just to clear the books. That’s more than they were actually putting into schools or education. The second method? It’s much faster. Germany proved that during the 20th century. It’s a three-pronged strategy: inflation, a specific tax on private wealth, and a partial debt jubilee.
Thomas Piketty argues that the so-called "German economic miracle" was actually built on the foundation of debt forgiveness—the very thing Germans are refusing to grant to Greece today.
After wrapping up World War II, Germany was buried under debt exceeding 200 percent of its GDP. Fast forward just ten years, and that figure had plummeted—public debt was sitting at less than 20 percent of GDP. France pulled off a nearly identical feat during that same window. We wouldn't stand a chance of hitting those kinds of numbers that quickly if we stuck strictly to the "fiscal discipline" everyone tries to force on Greece today. Instead, both nations utilized a different playbook, one where debt recovery is actually one of the three core components. Just look back at the London Agreement of 1953; they wiped out 60 percent of Germany's debt and restructured their domestic obligations entirely. That’s how you actually move the needle, says Thomas Piketty.
If we had told the Germans they refused to own up to their mistakes, they’d still be footing the bill today.
So, there’s this piece in The New York Times where a journalist argues that the decision to forgive German debts was basically an admission that the massive reparations imposed after World War I helped trigger World War II. Well, Thomas Piketty isn't buying it. He thinks that whole line of reasoning is complete nonsense. According to him, wiping those debts wasn't some panicked reaction to history repeating itself; it was a calculated, rational move—both politically and economically. It was about giving the German people a chance to actually stop looking backward and finally start focusing on the future.
We can't honestly expect younger generations to spend decades footing the bill for their parents' blunders. Look, the Greek government definitely screwed up big time—they were basically cooking the books until 2009. But the younger generation in Greece shouldn't be held accountable for those ancestral mistakes any more than young Germans were back in the 50s and 60s. We have to look forward. The whole foundation of Europe is built on forgiving debt and making investments in the future, not on some concept of eternal penance. We can't afford to forget that.
Responding to a report from The New York Times about how many Germans believe the Greeks still haven't learned their lesson—and apparently want to keep spending beyond their means—Thomas Piketty fires back: "If we had told you Americans back in the 50s that you hadn't properly dealt with your mistakes, you'd still be paying off those debts today. Luckily, we were smart enough not to do that." He also points out that Germany isn't just refusing to show Greece any mercy; they're actually profiting from the struggle by lending them money at standard commercial interest rates.
"Debt restructuring is inevitable for several countries in Europe"
According to Thomas Piketty, kicking Greece out of the eurozone would trigger an agonizing era that would essentially result in "sacrificing the European social model, its democracy, and even its very civilization on the altar of conservative, irrational austerity politics." Rather than that, Thomas Pikety proposes a different way to handle the current crisis.
"We need a summit on all European debts, similar to what we had after World War II. Debt restructuring, not just for Greece but for several nations across Europe, is unavoidable. We have already wasted six months in completely non-transparent negotiations with Athens. The Eurogroup's idea that Greece will achieve a 4 percent budget surplus and pay off its debts over 30 to 40 years is still being floated. According to them, there will be a one percent surplus in 2015, two percent in 2016, and then three and a half percent in 2017. That is absolute madness! It’s never going to happen. And yet, we just keep delaying this inevitable debate," says Thomas Piketty.
Once debt forgiveness is finally on the table, Thomas Piketty argues that a new European institution should be established to set maximum allowable budget deficits, preventing a massive spike in debt ever again. He suggests creating a committee within the European Parliament composed of representatives from national parliaments to oversee this. For Thomas Piketty, the bottom line is that decisions in Europe must be made democratically, rather than through brute force exerted from Berlin.
mellownomad said:If my interpretation of your stance is correct, you were essentially calling for a boycott of products from the very country where I reside.
Were you personally prepared to make any sacrifices to lead by example?
Regardless, we are drifting away from the core issue at hand....
I don't owe anyone a single cent.
If anything, people owe me.
I still have a decent amount of cash sitting in various bank accounts in different currencies.
I also hold a significant portfolio of stocks.
Following my proposal would mean taking a hit personally; maybe I’d see some long-term gains through real estate later on.
But let's be real: the current global situation is just unsustainable. It's better for the world if we sacrifice the big American, German, Dutch, Danish, French, and British banks—along with their savings accounts—for the greater good. Otherwise, we're looking at a massive war on the horizon that will claim billions of lives this time around. Money isn't worth that many lives.
mellownomad said:So, what's the next step in your logic—are you planning to commute to work by bicycle just to stay consistent?
I walk to the office, and in the summer, I just catch a breeze.
Jonathan Bennett2 said:Processing costs remain a primary factor, alongside issues involving Venezuela (and South America in general), Russia, and several other nations.
Then there are the taxes and price fluctuations that vary from state to state, not to mention concessions—and I won't even start listing them all because the list goes on forever.
I exclusively use Colombian crude; it’s the cheapest option available, even more affordable than what comes from Saudi Arabia. A friend sends me the barrel count via the Bolivian consul, and then it gets refined at a repurposed facility in Sisk.
The conversion for charitable purposes is carried out under the protection of an anonymous high-ranking church official. They remain anonymous because they are merely humble shepherds and servants, nothing more.
I don't know what you're getting at. I'm talking about the inter-state arbitrage that's still happening, where the difference between states is settled via credit until that credit bubble eventually bursts. It's just that the banking vultures have made the whole thing incredibly complicated now. Back in the day, in America, things were handled much more simply.
You buy a Japanese car, the bank pays the Japanese manufacturer in USD or Euros, and later the bank buys back the currency from tourism companies and exporters. If there's a foreign exchange shortage, the parent bank just extends credit to the local branch, and bit by bit, the debt just keeps climbing.
mellownomad said:Middle Eastern nations control the oil supply that powers our entire fleet of vehicles
Sent from my iPad using Reddit
And they’re basically the only reason why barter trade is impossible.
mellownomad said:Look, nobody is stopping you from riding a bike everywhere if that's your thing.
Just send me a private message with a photo of the receipt after you buy the bike, along with a picture of yourself commuting to work on it...
Then maybe I'll consider doing the same.
I honestly can't tell if you moved to Japan or South Korea, given how much you're obsessing over commuting by car. If you had just said, "Hey, use a bike if you actually want to enjoy the ride," I would've assumed you relocated to Italy.
It's pretty simple: Italians build cars out of pure passion and soul; the Japanese and Koreans build them to be reliable tools. The French? They build them if you're a masochist who enjoys spending weekends at the mechanic. The British don't even have an auto industry anymore, and I’m certainly not crazy enough to drive some Russian-American junk. The Chinese are just starting to show up. Oh, and then there's Germany—they basically build cars for farmers.
mellownomad said:Why would that be a bad thing for us?
First, do you honestly believe a debtor should have the right to decide how much they owe? If you live in the USA, you have that agency; if you live in a place like this, you don't.
Second, why do I refer to this as "mental socialism"?
We have this deep-seated tradition of taking from the wealthy to redistribute to the poor.
There is an old proverb that suggests a wealthy man can become poor, but he will find his way back to wealth; however, a poor man might find wealth, only to slide right back into poverty.
Why does this happen? It comes down to several factors, one being the fundamental relationship one maintains with money.
By taking from those who actually possess capital—whether through progressive taxation or various progressive levies and similar burdens—we effectively penalize the very people who drive success. It is the successful individuals who push society forward.
You can argue with me, but workers and laborers alone don't push a society forward; they merely maintain the status quo.
Whether it is through progressive taxation or the refusal to honor debts, we are essentially incentivizing a socialist mindset...
And where has that path led us? The US has seen its own eras of massive fiscal instability, and looking at our history, we see the patterns.
People have always been leaving this country; one major wave began back in the mid-60s when people headed toward Europe, and the latest wave is happening right now.
Does that suggest we are a successful society? We are certainly not...
Einstein once noted that "the mind which creates the problem is not the same mind capable of solving it." In other words, we require an entirely different mindset.
How is a country like Germany so prosperous? They are prosperous because they don't spend their time lamenting their inability to pay off debt; instead, they focus on working and saving, working and saving... and then using those savings to purchase things (as Hayek might suggest).
They likely understand that wealth is built over generations and passed down accordingly.
We lack that awareness... why? Because every 20 to 30 years, the system feels the need to reset itself—wealth must be seized from someone, someone must flee the country, and so on...
It is because we lived under socialism and continue to harbor a socialist mindset... our current social order simply leans on those old habits.
If the public weren't so easily swayed, they wouldn't fall for the repetitive political games played by the Republicans and the Democrats.
That is precisely why I left and moved away. From a comfortable distance, I am watching the Titanic sink, because four or five years ago, I predicted the economy would hit a breaking point (and I felt the same way even earlier).
To conclude: there is a saying, "choose your own battles," and fighting for our debts to be wiped clean is a lost cause. Creditors will likely be even harsher with us than they were with Greece, and our only saving grace is that our debt load isn't quite as massive as theirs.
Instead of chasing fairy tales, we should be looking at how to actually repay that debt and fix the state of the nation.
Personally, I say let's just ban all products coming from whatever country you work for. And what happens when the entire world goes bankrupt and falls into poverty? Where is your precious new country supposed to sell its goods and services then?