Who is the pilot on the GreekWings flight

The flight deck door is locked, autopilot is set, the passengers are frantically banging on the cabin door but can Greece bank before it crashes into the immovable Alps. And, more importantly, will we have to wait for recovery of the black box to discover who was really at the controls.

In these final few hours before impact the Eurogroup is steadfast in its position of total and complete capitulation by the Greek government before it will consider releasing €7.2 billion bailout funds. After reviewing Athens’ proposals for reform, the guardians of the purse strings have deemed them inadequate and even amateurish. So, what are the options for the eurozone if Greece does not satisfy their demands and defaults on the €450 million payment to the IMF on 9th April and who or what is driving those decisions.

The suspects are:

Alexis Tsipras, 40 year-old ‘Radical’ leader of left-wing coalition party, Syriza who has seen a meteoric rise in the last two years but has been in activism and politics since University. His mandate from the Greek electorate is the lifting of Austerity measures imposed by the Troika of creditors and to keep Greece in the single currency.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, 49 year-old Dutch Labour party finance minister and president of the Eurogroup, the select committee of European finance ministers who since 2015 have jurisdiction over the Euro. His role is to maintain stability of the single currency.

Angela Merkel, 60 year-old German chancellor. She is the leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union. Germany’s position in the union makes it the de facto leader in negotiations but she has expressed a desire not to have the Euro fail under her watch.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem

If Greece defaults and a Grexit occurs then in the short term, the bond markets could go bear and the euro would go into free fall. In this age of bond market sycophancy, this is a big deal.

That said, any concessions given to the Greeks would become a precedent for other struggling Eurozone nations and while the band-aid needed to plug the hole in Greece is relatively small, Italy and Spain or even France could be far more damaging.

The austerity strategy appears to be working for some members such as Portugal and Ireland, both have exited the bail-out programme and re-entered the international credit market, the latter is now the fastest growing economy in Europe. However this is just balance-sheet understanding, many Irish and Portuguese are not seeing the benefits.

Many Eurozone nations would be watching Greece to see how it dealt with the divorce and depending on how painless it turned out or what could be learned from the experiment, there could be more departures from the single currency which could well lead to complete devolution.

Alexis Tsipras

In the event of an ill-prepared and messy Grexit the already fatigued Greek people would loose faith in the young prime minister, not only ending his career but sparking chaos and possibly an opening for the far-right fascist groups to seize control. Greeks have hankered for state reform for as long as I can remember but the reality would cause more collateral damage than they are prepared for.

An unnamed Syriza official recently said that as a left-wing government, faced with the choice of defaulting to the creditors or their own people it was a no-brainer. Brave words indeed but also damn straight, given the choice of paying the mortgage and feeding your kids, what would you do. No-brainer, right?

But his choice is not just death or dishonour.

Greece could gain support from Russia. Syriza harbours within its ranks some far left idealists who may still hold romantic notions of allegiance to Russia. They may not have realised that Putin’s Russia has bypassed communism to revert back to the days of the Tsars. 

However, Russia has its own liquidity problems and would not bailout Greece without some pretty heavy caveats whether declared or implied. Recent events in Ukraine are very telling of Putin’s ambitions. Russian gas supplies to Greece which are used for domestic use and electricity generation have already given it a significant political foothold.

Russians also represent a huge growth in tourism for Greece who are also buying up holiday property. In some tourist areas English has been demoted to third place on menus and shop signs.

Angela Merkel

Germany’s motives have much in common with the Eurogroup’s, but Angela must play to the home audience. Germany is running a sizable surplus due to its reluctance to take advantage of cheaper than cash credit which is available to it and the austerity measures it has been imposing on its own people, which it systematically blames on Eurozone slackers like Greece. Bending to Greece would be a domestic disaster for Merkel. While a short-term fall in the Euro could hurt but foreign currency holdings and cheap exports would buffer the blow and she would be seen as a saviour.

The Euro is significantly undervalued compared to the German economy. It is the only economy that could withdraw from the Euro with money in the bank but a return to the Deutsche Mark would mean more expensive German exports and it would go back to being another European nation rather than the epicentre of an EU empire.

If Greece were to be cut loose this would mean a constriction of the European borders especially in a very strategic area of the Mediterranean.

We forget though, there is a new wave of Eurozone candidate nations in the wings including Iceland, Albania, Montenegro and Turkey. Turkey gives access to the Med and the middle east, Albania and Montenegro who give access to the Ionian across from Italy and who along with Serbia and Macedonia go to bridging the northern members to Bulgaria and ultimately Turkey and beyond.

These candidates may be seen as more manageable than Greece and not to mention, a Greek withdrawal would make Macedonia and Turkey’s integration easier.

So who is in the driving seat then? 

Well, Merkel does seem to have the most options.

Tsipras is between a rock and several hard-places. Threats have been thrown of everything from Russia to opening the roads for Islamist extremists but ultimately his hand is bluff. Varoufakis’ and his post-election European road trip found few allies. His only option may be to steer into Russian and Chinese ploughed fields.

Dijsselbloem represents the auto pilot, his role is the result of programming. He can only prepare for the fallout.

And all the while the bond markets are licking their lips with glee, fail or fly the euro will make many hedge funds even more obscenely rich.

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Go Greek for a Week

The Greek tragedy that is being played out like a car-crash reality show that gets recommissioned for a new series every time we think it is coming to the final episode. Like any of you who stuck with ‘LOST’ until the climax, the story just lost any semblance of reason. The Greek narrative is becoming so convoluted and discombobulating that it is difficult to make any sense of it. Are the Greeks the lazy feckless moustache twirlers who siesta’d away over 300 billion Euros or is it the insensitive megalomaniac Germans, hell bent on annexing their neighbours… again. Is Varoufakis an economics rock star Yoda or a naive idealist who still believes he can have his souvlaki and eat it and is Greece’s claim to WWII reparations that could effectively wipe the slate clean valid or simply risible. The fact is that all of this has clouded the real issues. For the simple answer I urge you to look no farther than yourself, your neighbours and your family.

For anyone following the will-they-won’t-they Grexit saga that is being played out in the media, you will notice that the story invariably falls into the language of bond yields and bank solvency. The macroeconomics of the situation are both baffling and contradictory. The Greek government was loaned more money than they could repay under the guise of a stable Eurozone member. Then, woken by the shock waves of the same crash that brought down some of the world’s biggest financial institutions, the markets began to panic causing a world recession which tipped Greece, among others, into a downward spiral. Greece is now locked out of the world finance markets beholden to the TROIKA for its life blood. The money needs to be borrowed in order to pay the loans that have stacked up and not to repay the loans but just the interest. So, more than two thirds of the bailout money is going straight back to the banks. But, it still holds a responsibility to its pensioners, unemployed and the people who earn a living working for the state.

The EU have attached certain conditions to these loans, the so called austerity measures, imagine the credit card company coming into your home and telling you what you can and can not spend your money on, imagine the bank telling you that in order to keep your overdraft facility you will have to sell your delivery van and service your customers with a bicycle then punish you for your business going down the tubes.

Stop!

I’m sorry, it is really difficult to talk about the Greek crisis without getting bogged down in the big picture, because it is so big and there is a reason for that. I did ask you to look to yourself for the answer and I will make good on that.

What did you do to create the property boom? Maybe you bid a little too high on the home you dreamed of, maybe you were a little creative with your mortgage application.

What did you do to cause the decline of the health service, did you worry too much about that lump, did you have an accident in your car, did you get into a fight.

What did you do to cause the downturn in industry that forced companies to move production to Asia, did you need too much to pay you rent/mortgage, did you pull a few sickies, did you spend a bit too much time on facebook.

What did you do to cause the credit crunch, did you fail to resist the sales, did you get tired of your old banger and borrow to get your family around in something cleaner and safer.

You will surely answer yes to many of these questions and more I could ask, so are you deserving of a country that has 25% of its workforce unemployed. A tax system that changes so unpredictably that businesses cannot plan or develop. Or as has recently started, main roads and high streets with the lights out at night because the council can’t pay the bills. No, of course you are not.

In 2011, channel 4 invited audiences to ‘Go Greek for a week’, they laid the blame for Greece's woes quite firmly on the population. This is a message that they intended you to internalise, to make you look to your own culpability in your nation’s flaws. There was some truth in the examples given but it did miss the point. The same point that is missed every time the media bang on about bond market yields and currency markets and GDP. The system manages the country not the other way round, the people took advantage of what was on offer, as you do. Government exists to manage a nation, bond markets exist to help finance these nations and the businesses that rely on the nation’s workforce and infrastructure to make profit. These same businesses and industries rely on the same population to consume their products and services.

The markets, industries, banks and governments exist because of the people, not the other way round. The EU and government’s sycophancy towards narcissistic markets has caused the problem, not you.

The markets are everything that Greece and all the other failing nations are accused of. They are fickle and myopic, they grab all they covet, they do not build civilisations, they do not nurture their own. They liquidate all they touch.

I would, once again, ask you to ‘Go Greek for a week’. Look at what is being allowed to happen to the people you met on holiday and whether you be British, French, German or anyone who feels above their plight to look around and see that you may not be the next Greece but that your time is coming.

The banks are so often described as ‘Too big to fail’ but surely this is a description that should only apply to nations of people.

Follow me on Twitter @acropof 

Also read: 

Alexis and Yanis are screwed

Is Greece ready for the New Drachma

What will Greece do after the Grexit

Europe needs councelling

I've been living in and writing about Greece for over 15 years This is my ride

Investment tip: Go long on Jackboots

The clock is ticking for Greece, a new tranche of bailouts has been agreed on the caveat that Alexis Tsipras’ reforms are up to scratch, not something he managed last time. When the money runs out the banks will implode and Greece will default and fall out of Merkel's merry little club and start printing drachma, right? Wrong. My investment tip is go long on jackboots because there are groups in the sidelines rubbing their hands together for a chance to begin their own ‘Project Mayhem’. A wave is coming and it smells of smoke.

Greece's new government will be successful just so long as it can maintain some stability. At the moment, the people are behind them in sufficient numbers, 47% according to a recent Metro analysis poll (but since when have polls been bankable), because they are trying to stand their ground against the austerity measures that have brought the country economically and socially to its knees. But if Varoufakis’ game theory ultimately turns out to be Candy Crush vs Eurogroup’s World of Warcraft, things will change and fast.

The country’s neo-nazi group, Golden Dawn has had its head a little low of late. Its leaders have been in prison and it has fallen back a little in the polls but that does not mean their support has waned. The thing with single policy groups is that they always attract floaters who will align with whoever satisfies that need at that time. The need at the moment is HOPE and Syriza is selling it by the bushel. But, If their ring turns brass, as is inevitably will, the need will be ANGER and for that the far-right is one-stop shopping.

In Germany, the war of words between the Greeks and the Germans has stoked the fires of xenophobia. The German government has been running a surplus which has called for a its own brand of austerity. Wages have not been keeping up with inflation and many are feeling the pinch. The obvious cause of this turn of fortunes is the lazy Mediterraneans and the French who have not been pulling their weight. Many Germans are tired of bailing out the rest of Europe and neo-nazi groups have gained ground.

Nigel Farage’s Ukip seem to be talking to the people despite the derision in the media, they are saying something the people need to hear. The ‘squeeze on the middle’ has made the middle-classes less affluent in real terms and house prices are taking a huge chunk from their incomes. At the lower end, eastern Europeans are believed to be taking unskilled and semi-skilled positions driving wages down to a point where the minimum wage is a standard not a safety net.

In France, Marine Le Pen’s Front National took 25% of the votes in the recent local elections. This is largely due to the Charlie Hebdo and related attacks as well as the struggling economy. The people are looking for action not words, they don’t feel safe and could easily fall into getting more protection than they bargained for.

The right-wing Sweden Democrats have been maintaining a steady presence and are now the third party with 13% of the vote.

So why the comment at the beginning of this article about ‘going long’ on jackboots.

It seems that the current obsession with finance and economics, the bond markets, going long, going short, currency markets and yields has detracted for the reason for their existence. Adam Smith, the grandfather of capitalism in his 1776 seminal work “The Wealth of Nations” focuses on the people, population’s role in wealth and prosperity. Marx built his thesis around the needs of the people vs the aims of industry, JM Keynes with JF Roosevelt built a ‘New Deal’ that focused on putting liquidity into the market (shops and industry) through the workers’ pockets and even Milton Friedman recognised the fundamental role of the population.

‘The markets’ have become narcissistic in their Hubris, a self-serving Matrix with the right to all and responsibility to none. But, worse of all, we and especially the world’s leaders are buying into it. The Banks must be firewalled at all cost and market value is the only value. Our young entrepreneurs are told to seek out venture capitalists, Dragons den and Shark tanks. Work, build and form an exit strategy. Investment is the only real goal. The markets are betting on the Eurozone’s demise and in the bond markets they are trading sovereignty futures.The system is no longer serving anyone but the system.

And, while the world is looking the wrong way, certain groups are flourishing in the peripheral vision. Building networks, brewing hate and offering solutions.

It is often said that Europe sleepwalked into WWI but we couldn’t make that mistake again, after all, we all learned from the past mistakes, didn’t we. Could it be said in the future that we were not asleep just blindsided by the markets and the pursuit of a unified European trading platform.

Follow me on Twitter @acropof 

Also read: 

Alexis and Yanis are screwed

Is Greece ready for the New Drachma

What will Greece do after the Grexit

Europe needs councelling

Episode 24: Media Panic

The story behind the truth

Monday morning smelt like the aftermath of the world’s biggest boyscout jamboree, dear blogees. The fires and barbecues had burned all weekend leaving the air seasoned with charred concrete and grilled meat.

The roads were jamming again with shop-keepers, office workers and mechanics inching their way slowly into a new week, a week like no other behind convoys of outside broadcasting vans looking for the story behind the story. Why would anyone set fire to the city’s tax offices, why indeed. Thousands of public employees had been turned away from blackened buildings by a thick perimeter of armed police. Now, with nowhere to go they littered the city’s cafes and snack bars, making everyone very nervous and the cash registers work harder than ever before.

I parked my Vespa on the pavement next to my allocated spot that was taken by a truck with a big white dish on its roof. The rest of the car park was occupied by the usual array of staff cars but, as I soon realised, the town hall was not occupied by their drivers. I passed ungreeted through the lobby and up to my office where I found the sole public employee actually employed in public duty, the well-assembled secretary. She sat behind her PC huffing and puffing. I threw a smile and a jovial good morning her way but it cut no ice, she sighed and told me that they were all at the cafe opposite. We had not been hit by the fire storm but opportunities like this don’t knock very often.

The cafe had been divvied up by the news crews collecting sound bites and talking heads that would support their particular narrative. As I arrived they were fighting over one of my maintenance staff, who always looked woeful enough to suck the cheer from all tomorrow’s parties. It was too late, far too late when I realised the unholy error of my action. I recognised one of the reporters fighting over the spanner monkey and he did not need a double take to spot me. He launched himself with his mic a quivering foil before him, the cable uncoiling behind him as he called my name in that faux-polite way that hounding hacks do. A passing school bus just missed him, fortunately it had already deposited its precious cargo but the trailing mic cable got whipped up in the wheels. The roving reporter’s legs overtook his body and flew into the air. His body hit the yellow bus like a damp towel and only then did the bus begin to apply usual braking procedures. I knew I couldn't stick around but I couldn't kid myself that I would be unseen. There was more foreign press in town than you could shake a shitty stick at, I would be buried. I needed my publicist more than ever and all I had was Socrates. I ran.

Home felt safe, the wife dropped the vacuuming to make some coffee, any excuse. I began hunting for some chemical relief.

“If you’re looking behind the Tolstoy, it’s gone!” She yelled over the sound of the choking peculator. “…and in the Scrabble.”

I was looking in the Cluedo. Shit!

She emerged from the kitchen carrying two steaming cups and still wearing her marigolds but I was not in the mood and I knew she wouldn't be either after I told her what had happened. I was right. I phoned Socrates while she threw expletives at me. He could be here in twenty minutes. When she started throwing solid objects, I prayed he would hurry and ran for the back door and the safety of the garden. I stopped and peered through the window. Had they found me yet? I was stuck between a psychotic wife and a telephoto lens. I chose the wife.

She was telling me how she wouldn’t tell me that she told me so for the God-knows-howmanyth time when Socrates arrived. I was under the delusion that his presence would calm her but I was wrong. There was absolutely no precedent to support this belief, in fact his presence usually made her more inflammatory. But, thank the good lord and all his angels, he was swinging a bottle of Bushmills black. I implored my good lady to be a little more welcoming to our guest.

“Why?” Her face contorted in forced quizzicality. “You don’t want the world to know the ins and outs of your private life’s armpit, you fucking Diva. That’s all you’ve ever lived off, selling tickets to the public washing of your dirty pants!” She was on a roll and I’m not sure about me but Socrates jaw was visibly hanging. “I don’t see what those fuckwits saw in you, prancing around the stage talking about your cock, for hours! I can’t think of anything to do with your cock that would fill a few minutes!” she even wiggled her little finger in the air.

Socrates reeled in his jaw and turned to me. “What is she talking about?” he whispered.

I squirmed, “Don’t know mate, it’s not that small.”

He gurned and shook his head and I fell in, feeling a little smaller than her little finger now.

She hadn’t paused her tirade for a breath but now she changed tack. “Ahh! Yeah tell him, tell him what the press found out. Tell him why you’re hiding from them. Tell him before I blow the fucking doors off your little scam.”

“Now, now missus, there must be a way we can—” He was beginning to squirm as bad as me, my wife is good at that.

She was now pointing fingers at us both and I was trying to find the words to explain something I hadn’t really understood myself. Dr. Alex had helped me come to terms with so many things during our sessions but I still had far to go. I drew breath to begin but she cut me off, thank God.

“Your boy here, used to be a big celebrity back in Britain until he lost it. What did they call it?”

I mumbled an answer at the floor. She thrust her finger at me and I turned to Socrates and said. “Messiah complex.”

“Got himself sued by the Vatican!”

“How was I to know they had the rights on Messiahs?” I protested.

Socrates deflated, “Oh! Is that it?”

“Sued us out of house and home, this was the only place we could afford to live!” She was building up to the full story. “Then he went anad a Soo public fucking breakdown—” She stopped and turned to Socrates, a smile grew on her face. “You sneaky little bastard, you knew, didn’t you?” He had gone back to a squirmy denial stance but the wife had her bone and no intention of letting it go. “You manipulative shit. You knew all the time!”

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Where it all began Episode 1 

What will Greece do after the GREXIT

Last night Alexis Tsipras entered talks with Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and select members of the Eurogroup for yet more discussion on what is essentially how to do what fewer and fewer people want and what more and more fear; keeping Greece in the Eurozone. The result wasn't much different to the previous summits; we'll wire the money if you play ball. Tsipras has not played ball and it seems just a matter of time before one side or the other calls time on this game of ping pong. So what will Greece do after this push/jump scenario plays its logical conclusion.

Game Theory: Candy Crush vs World of Warcraft

In a recent interview with Costas Lapavistsa, Economist at London's SOAS and Syriza MP he said they were 'Flogging a dead horse'  he added that Syrizas' strategy had come to an end and it was time to negotiate an amicable departure from the Eurozone. Indeed, after a huge show of strength by Tsipras and Varoufakis it seems that Yanis' famous game theory has been but Candy Crush to the Eurogroup's World of Warcraft. The question on everyone's lips now is what will the bankrupt nation do after default or a negotiated withdrawal from the single currency system. The one would leave Greece with cleared debt but no line of credit with international financiers, the other with a huge debt hanging but maybe some line of credit. Recent example of these scenarios being played out are Argentina and Iceland, two quite different cultures that resulted in very different outcomes. 

Yanis Varoufakis, Greek finmin and self proclaimed Erratic Marxist subscribes to the theory of growth through massive public investment, the Keynesian approach to economic development. This is the same strategy that brought the US's New Deal which many believe brought the country out of the Great Depression in the 1930s under Roosevelt. But this was a programme implemented by a country with huge resources in a time very different from now, when people's expectations from the state were almost non-existent. We now live in a world of state benefits, healthcare and education, undeniably progress but also costly. Varoufakis believed that this strategy could be successful from within the Eurozone but it is obvious that this is not compatible with the Eurozone's strategy. In fact, Germany has been tightening its purse strings with its own people. Their idea of a New Deal is Quantitative Easing (QE), pumping money into the top and preying that it will reach somebody grateful. The Keynesian approach is to pump money into projects that put money in the public's pocket so they will share it with each other and industry.  

The common misconception with Keynesian capitalism is that it is a spendfest. The Greek government is historically bad at making free with capital. Tsipras has already committed to re-bloating the public sector and while this may put a few more Euros (or Drachma) on the high street it will do little to stimulate industry or entrepreneurial activity. On the contrary, a more populous public sector tends to increase bureaucracy to keep the bodies busy. This has traditionally been Greece's major obstacle for foreign investors as well as local entrepreneurs. 

So, where could the money, if there were any, be spent to get the country's economy moving.

AGRICULTURE: Investment in farming could boost the economy, there are few places as fertile and the quality of its produce is world-class. But, the industry will need to change fundamental attitudes. This has already begun but years of unrealistic state compensations have made it more viable for many producers to be less competitive. A turnaround in approach with higher productivity could well save the country’s ailing fortunes. Farming has traditionally been viewed as peasantry but food technology is a growing and the world needs food, not just from mass consumption but also premium quality, something that Greece could do very well at.

RENEWABLE ENERGY: Greece has more than twice the sun-hours per year than the UK. While there has been huge investment in solar farms in recent years, changes in policy and the national electricity company reneging on contracts has made this area much less attractive. Farming and domestic waste could also be a good source of fuel for anaerobic digestion plants that may not be an export but they would take the pressure off imports of oil and gas from Russia.

MINERAL RESERVES: Greece has untapped reserves of gold, rare-earth metals while speculation of oil and gas reserves have yet to be fully explored. The exploitation of these may be another way forward but this must be approached cautiously as there is a lot of resistance from groups that maintain that the ecological impact could damage tourism, Greece’s major income. It must also be ensured that profits find their way into the Greek coffers and not Swiss banks.

NEW TECHNOLOGY: Greece has one of the highest levels university graduates in Europe and a thriving entrepreneurial community but the lack of jobs and funding has caused a huge haemorrhage of graduates and young entrepreneurs abroad. Their startups ultimately contributing to the GDP of other countries, their skills acquired and paid for by Greece, working for foreign interests. This trend needs to be reversed with support, funding and stripped-down bureaucracy for new ventures. 

And don't forget: Greece is a fabulous winter destination with history, clement climate and even skiing. Visit this site for ideas 

It is painfully obvious that the Euro has failed on so many levels but mostly it has failed the people it was supposed to serve, the European citizens. Instead of unifying a continent it has bred mistrust and acrimony. 

The Greek exit will be traumatic, as will be the exit of other members. But, it is good management that will make the difference. Iceland made a quick turnaround but Argentina continues to suffer and I fear that Greece has more in common with the latter.

I believe that the Keynesian approach is the way forward, Hayak/Friedman's free market neo-liberalism has already devastated many nations at a social level (let's forget the markets for one moment). Good management is the key, funding needs to find its way to stimulation of GDP not the deficit.


Follow me on Twitter @acropof and like me on facebook you won't regret it for long!

Also read:
Will the Grexit spark a Neo-Nazi uprising

Alexis and Yanis are screwed

Is Greece ready for the New Drachma

Europe needs councelling

Jeremy Clarkson just wants out!

Top Gear - All at sea

There is one man caught up in the middle of  all of the present Top Gear harangue, a man who has invested almost his entire career in the show, one man, who without Top Gear will have to face a fundamental re-evaluation of his next steps. Jeremy Clarkson, the Marmite man, loved and loathed in equal measure. The man who may have the most to lose if BBC axe him from their schedules. So why have his politically incorrect bollock-ups become more frequent and more abrasive. Simple fact is, according to an ex-member of the Top Gear team, Ian Morris, he may just have gotten bored.

There are few who have not found themselves at the wrong end of his tongue from Marina owners (the car, that is) to suicides, From Mexicans to Asians. Yet there is something that keeps him at the top of his game. Jack Whitehall, while on the 'Star in a reasonably priced car' feature once described Clarkson as the coolest dad at his school. Clarkson is a guilty pleasure who, in many ways, like Nigel Farage voices the unvoiceable. We may not agree with what he says but sometimes we are a little smug that they've been said, while still reserving our moral superiority. 

Is this Clarkson?

Clarkson is a cheeky schoolboy in jeans and a sports coat. His grey hair and beer-girth simply cushion the impudent child. The Viz character in real. And, if you buy that then the rest falls into place. Clarkson is bored. He has been actively trying to get out of his contract for sometime now and the BBC have not been able to bring themselves to do it. His transgressions have become more and more frequent and maybe he knows deep down that the time has come to change gear. 

Many were surprised when he sold his shares in the franchise some years ago but that may have been the first pointer to the recent acceleration in his scandal-baiting behaviour. He knows that his presence is already a majority share in the show. The show's worldwide reworks including USA, Australia and Korea have not captured audiences like Clarkson in the British version and Russia's attempt was cancelled due to woeful viewing figures. He is the show and despite rumours of high-profile replacements like Chris Evans, nobody is under any illusion that he could be replaced. 

With contracts up for renewal at the end of this month, I think that it is time to let him go or we will see more petulant behaviour from a man who simply needs a change. What he would do with that freedom is anyone's guess but I can't see him straying too far from the path he has beaten. Who knows, maybe he'll surprise us all, I'm sure that's what he wants.   

Follow me on Twitter @acropof and like me on facebook you won't regret it for long! 

Driverless cars: Who pays when people get killed?

Cute until it bites

The motoring industry is in a frenzy at the moment and for once it is not driven by the Top Gear crowd’s appetite for hypercars and horsepower. The car is on the tipping point of a new era that will put motoring one step closer to the imaginings of science fiction. The driverless car will soon be with us and with it comes the promise of freedom, comfort and safety. But anyone who has relied on technology, whether it be trusting their files to a cloud server or taking directions from navigator systems will know that tech will eventually let you down and when that happens people will get  hurt. And when that happens who will take responsibility.

Human error accounts for more than 80% of road traffic accidents and while this may depend on where you live or your age or social status the fact remains we are the cause of most injuries, deaths and material damage on our roads. According to WHO’s 2013 figures, around 1.24 million people die each year as a result of road traffic accidents.

Key facts

• About 1.24 million people die each year as a result of road traffic crashes.
• Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death among young people, aged 15–29 years.
• 91% of the world's fatalities on the roads occur in low-income and middle-income countries, even though these countries have approximately half of the world's vehicles.
• Half of those dying on the world’s roads are “vulnerable road users”: pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.
• Without action, road traffic crashes are predicted to result in the deaths of around 1.9 million people annually by 2020.

So the reasoning is perfectly simple, remove us from the equation and we have safer roads for everyone. Removing key factors contributing to road deaths and injuries.

Speeding
Around 400 people a year are killed in crashes in which someone exceeds the speed limit or drives too fast for the conditions.

Drink Driving
Around 280 people die a year in crashes in which someone was over the legal drink drive limit.

Seat Belt Wearing
Around 300 lives each year could be saved if everyone always wore their seat belt.

Careless Driving
Around 300 deaths a year involve someone being "careless, reckless or in a hurry", and a further 125 involve "aggressive driving".

At-work
Around one third of fatal and serious road crashes involve someone who was at work.

Inexperience
More than 400 people are killed in crashes involving young car drivers aged 17 to 24 years, every year, including over 150 young drivers, 90 passengers and more than 170 other road users.

Failed to Look Properly
40% of road crashes involve someone who 'failed to look properly'.

Loss of Control
One third of fatal crashes involved 'loss of control' of a vehicle.

Failed to Judge Other Person's Path/Speed
One in five crashes involve a road user failing to judge another person's path or speed.

Above figures are from ROSPA so regard accidents in UK with a population around 64 million with one of the best road safety records in the world but are still representative of the major areas of human error. The implied promise of this technology is that by removing these factors thousands of lives will be saved, not to mention the millions in costs to the health service and material damages that are incurred in every shunt. But despite its almost qualified God complex, Google is fallible and fails us on a regular basis. When this happens and it will, will they be culpable for the loss of life, injury of damage.

A point raised by Jeremy Clarkson, only half-jokingly, on BBC’s Top Gear recently was that in the face of a complex ethical decision like which way to swerve, onto a mother with a pram or a to certain injury or death of the occupant. which will the computer choose. A human driver may succumb to instinct and err on side of self-preservation but the decision is made by an individual with accountability. The point is that there is a responsible party who could be judged culpable and face the consequences. When the same happens in car controlled by its internet connection.

Much has already been made of the privacy element of driverless cars. Google already knows more about us than our Mums they will now have the ability to track our movements in the real world. 

The question is, are legislators ready to hold them accountable when things go wrong? 

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Is Greece ready for the New Drachma

On Friday 20th February Tsipras, Varoufakis and the Greek people found themselves between a rock and a hard-place. The rock was supplied by Wolfgang Schäuble who has been quite gloating in his intentions to break the Greek delegation and continue with EU's strategy for the Eurozone. The hard place was supplied by the Greeks themselves as the announcement on Greek media that around €20 billion had hemorrhaged from Greek bank deposits since December and the scene was set for a full-on run on the banks. Of course, telling people that their deposits may not be safe can have but one result; their deposits will not be safe. An insolvent banking system would be politically disastrous for the most popular government since ousting the junta in 1974. Finally Tsipras ad Varoufakis had no choice but to capitulate and return home with their tails between their legs.

           

Tsipras has vowed that if he doesn't get a fair deal he will leave slamming the door so hard that the whole house will fall in. Has that time come. The win that has be lauded, in lieu of anything else to say is that the Eurogroup has agreed to see a list of proposals for exactly how they intend to bring the economy into check, this is seen as a positive but we must also consider that while the knot has been loosened, it is also possible to wriggle the noose tighter still. There is no way that the Eurogroup (Schäuble) will be satisfied with the proposals this whole exercise is a last ditch demoralisation tactic, maybe even to force Tsipra’s to play his hand. The backlash has begun with the most audible coming from within Syriza’s own ranks, Manolis Glezos has accused Tsipras of trying to get away with calling meat fish with reference to the lexical realignment of the Eurogroup agreement.

Are the Greeks finally ready to bite the bullet and embrace the Drachma again.

There have been no reliable domestic polls on a Grexit and return to the Drachma and none could possibly done as merely putting the question to the people would cause the mother of all runs and a collapse of the economy before anything could be done. I have been trying to gauge public opinion here on the subject and the first impression took me by surprise, people are reluctant to talk about it. This is strange for a people who have always had a preoccupation with politics, taken relish in criticising the government and more recently the governments of its European partners but now starting the conversation provokes nervous fiddling with smart-phones, shoulder-shrugging or irritated changes of subject. So tired by hope against hope, so weary of broken plans, many have shut down completely. Their last burst of excitement spent, they are resigned to a new status quo and are trying to get on with breathing again. The world outside the political rallies and euro zone negotiations is calm detachment. According to Robertson and Bowlby’s attachment theory Greece has come to the third stage of ambivalent attachment, a survival stage that avoids any further emotional investment and the pain that accompanies disappointment.

Is Greece ready to embrace a new drachma. According to Bowlby, Robertson and even Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine, Greece is neither ready nor resistance to anything any more and those who feel powerless will just get on with breathing regardless of the flavour of air they are given. 

The one thing I have realised is that for the first time the Greeks have leaders to rally behind and that could just make the difference. 

UPDATE: WHAT WILL GREECE DO AFTER THE GREXIT