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The Syriza regime (and those who broke away to create LAE) have nothing to do with the left. They're in a league of their own. They live and operate in some kind of a parallel universe.

That's what I'm seeing too. There's a big discrepancy between what's on "paper" and what happens in real life. I think that people in big cities, especially Athens, are hit way harder by the crisis. As you said, prime retail locations all over Athens and Piraeus are vacant and have been vacant for at least 2-3 years already. The current regime...err government...has brought the retail sector to its knees. Who knows how long it's going to take before life as we knew it before the crisis is restored.

Where did you read that the economy is doing better? I think the situation in Greece is pretty much the same over the past couple of years, which shows that there's no real progress towards the right direction. As you said though, the people are great wherever you go, which shows that tough situations bring out the best in people.

We missed you too Patrick.

Καλα Χριστουγεννα σε ολους και τις καλυτερες ευχες μας για ενα ευτυχισμενο 2017. Καλες γιορτες! Merry Christmas to all of our friends and our best wishes for a happy 2017. Happy holidays!

Well done. Nice work as usual.

Honey is a classic remedy for everything in Greece. Also, when it comes to sore throat, coughing and any type of cold people drink hot (and spicy!) soups or chamomile and tea. Does this really work? It most likely doesn't hurt and it sure makes you feel a bit better in the short term.

Not sure what's going to happen when Trump takes over. He had a lot of support from the Cuban expats in Florida who hate the Castro regime, so he won't be turning his back on them. I guess it will depend on what the Cuban's will do over the next couple of years. What kind of reforms they'll do, who will be the new president, whether they'll allow open elections in the near future etc.

Fidel has always been an interesting case. I do not doubt for a minute that he truly believed in his revolutionary cause until the day he died, which makes him a rare example of a revolutionary leader who - no matter how wrong he was in many things - he stayed true to his beliefs to the end. Who knows how things would have evolved for Cuba if the Americans had never blockaded them for all those years. They may had become a more open and democratic society than they are today. It's going to be interesting how things will evolve now that Fidel is gone and there doesn't seem to be a strong leader in Cuba behind him. Will they fall prey again to the American investments? Trump doesn't seem very eager to continue in Obama's footsteps and bridge the gap between the 2 countries. Raul Castro is pretty old too and he will most likely step down in the next few years. What's going to happen in Cuba next? Who knows...

This has been a question that haunts me for years since I was very very young. "Why on earth would a working-class person ever vote for a conservative candidate?" At a first glance it seems counter-intuitive for working-class people to vote against their economic interests. I grew up in a working-class neighborhood to a working-class family. My family was not very "political" and there were not many political discussions when I was growing up. Things would usually just flare up during the election season and then go back to normal after the election season was over. Growing up working-class, and with very little, it was a bit surprising to me seeing my parents supporting 2 different and opposing ideologies. My dad was always supporting the right wing party. He was (and still is) a life-long conservative. My mom was always at the opposite side of the spectrum, left-wing and socialist. As a young kid it used to strike me as very odd that my dad would support the conservatives as this was clearly against his economic interests. It took me a while to understand that he didn't vote for them because he believed and supported their "programs". If anything, he most likely had no clue about what their programs were and what was their financial and social agenda. He was (and still is...) voting for them because of the "values" they represent. In Greece the "values" of the right-wing parties revolve around "country, religion and family". This seems to be a "universal" message for the conservatives around the globe. It's not much different in the US, or even Canada. On the other hand, the left/socialist parties do not have a "universal" clear message and set of values, easily understood by the working-class masses. They do propose great programs from time ti time to protect the elderly, the youth and the people in need, they try to expand universal health care etc. However, this doesn't seem to resonate with most people and thus the left never creates a lasting connection with most of its voters. I was thinking about all this again lately when I've been trying to understand how on earth Trump managed to dupe so many million people to vote for him. This shouldn't be a surprise though. It happens throughout the world. Right wing parties put "values" before "programs" and they "hide" their real agendas behind those universal "traditional values". This is why Trump's message is so successful amongst working-class US citizens. It's pretty dumb yet pretty clear: He basically said: "I'll protect you from gay, Spanish-speaking flag burners - but along the way I'll cut taxes on the rich, cut benefits for the poor, and allow industries to pollute your drinking water and the environment, but never mind that!" This message seems to resonate with a huge number of the working-class people in the US. The "values" represented in this message are easy to grasp. "Never mind the taxes and the environment bullshit talk. We don't understand this. But those gay Spanish-speaking assholes are ruining our country". Pretty strong message!

How is this new ladder any safer? Couldn't they just create a new school for these kids in their village so that they wouldn't have to climb that ladder?

Newspapers are no more The internet raised misinformation to new heights. Anyone can post whatever they want at any time and spread misinformation across the globe in seconds. No rules.

In Greece too most people still use cash. Black market and tax evasion thrive in those societies. The government cannot tax what they cannot see. However, complete reliance on plastic money would be a dangerous thing, as ajax mentioned earlier.

Που χαθηκες εσυ?

I don't compare anything. You're constantly comparing Trump with the rappers. I'm only talking about Trump in this topic. Whether rap singers or Bill Clinton or whomever else bother me as well as people and personalities that's a different discussion and has nothing to do with what we're discussing here. In this topic we're talking about Trump, and the bottom line is that as the president of the US (and even as a candidate), he should be watching his mouth and his actions, but he doesn't. Yet, 50 million people voted for him and they ferociously support him. The funniest part is that the majority of these people are conservative who would go bananas if some liberal candidate would have said half of what Trump has said throughout this campaign. That I find sickening.

Are you comparing what you and I and a rap singer say about women - or whatever other issue - with what the president of the US is saying about that same issue in public? Are you delusional? If you'd claim that you like to "grab women by the pussy" in this forum nobody would blink an eye. Sure, some people might get offended but nobody would really care. You are a nobody (as everyone else in this forum).

When did I ever say that Clinton was a saint? Whatever he did though, he did it in the privacy of his house/office, or whatever, so it's none of my concern. Clinton never bragged publicly to a radio or TV station about all this, even though at the end of the day the sexual relationships of two consenting adults shouldn't be anyone's business. On the other hand, we have Trump publicly saying socially unacceptable things like grabbing a woman by the pussy (without the woman's consent...) or screwing his daughter or whatever. These are socially unacceptable things to do (or even say that you'd like to do).

That's a pretty silly argument. I won't go into a philosophical debate around what's objective and what's subjective, but I think we can all agree that someone saying in public that "he's so great that he can grab a woman by the pussy" is not a smart or decent thing to say. This is not subjective. This is something commonly accepted in our day and age as being a stupid remark. Also blatantly lying and flip-flopping is not something subjective either. IN our day and age we have something called video and audio recording and one can easily go back in time and see or hear what Trump said about different subjects and pinpoint all his lies and fli-flopping throughout this election. Again, not subjective.

Yes, of course it's bad. The people spoke in Greece and in the UK too, and they messed up in both cases. Politicians have become "entertainers". The most successful politician/entertainer is the one who gets most of the voters of his party out to vote. That's all it takes to win an election. You don't need to have a realistic political platform, in fact you don't need a platform at all. As it was proved by Trump you don't even need to say anything of value, just say stupid things, lies, whatever comes in mind, and then the next day say the complete opposite. It still doesn't matter. As long as you get the sheep out in droves to vote you're still good. It happened in Greece, it then happened in the UK, now it happened in the US too. This is not good news for democracy...

Anyway. No point on arguing on any of this yet. The guy is a tool. He's saying one thing one day and then the complete opposite the next. Nobody knows where he really stands on many important issues. We'll have lots to talk about in January when he moves into the White House.

Do you think any American will pay $100 for a t-shirt which has a tag saying "made in USA" as opposed to paying $10 for the same t-shirt if it's made in China? The "made in USA" days are long gone. Raising taxes and adding tariffs didn't work for Syriza in Greece, and definitely not going to work for the US.

Ah...you got to love American capitalism You got to love how American capitalists (like Trump...) take care of the American people. What's priceless is that those same American people who are screwed over by the American capitalism system for years voted in power a representative of this same system which is screwing them! Truly priceless! Talking about tariffs: What Trump suggested is probably the stupidest thing I've heard in years. Probably stupider than his suggestion of building a wall across the Mexican border. What on earth makes you think that if Trump slaps a 24% tax on all imports will keep the cost of imported goods at the same level? This is absurd. If he slaps a tax of 24% on something then this something will go up in price by 24%, it's as simple as that. On top of this, what makes you think that any large corporation will invest within the US for manufacturing jobs? There is a reason why large corporations moved manufacturing outside the US a long long time ago. As an example, let's say that it currently costs Nike 10 cents to manufacture a t-shirt in China. Why on earth would they move production back to the US where it would cost them $10 (or more!) to manufacture the same t-shirt? This is 101 capitalism. What Trump promised to those 50 year old + morons is not going to happen. This is not how capitalism works. I guess his voters will have to learn this the hard way.

I wonder where you're basing this on? From what I know unemployment in the US is at an all-time low (or at least the lowest it's been in years). The reality is that the jobs Trump is promising don't exist anymore - or at best they're headed towards extinction (for example don't expect new coal mines to open, and don't expect millions of new jobs to be created overnight for uneducated 50+ year old people. It's not going to happen). Reality is going to hit Trump supporters really hard next year.

I don't think anyone argues that Clinton was the wrong candidate for the democrats. This was clear as early as last year where there were a few polls showing that between her and Sanders only Sanders had a good chance of winning Trump. Obviously the democrats didn't take those polls seriously. I never was a big fan of Hilary myself, but again, she's not really the "devil" most people think she is. If elected she'd most likely have been a middle of the road president. She's already what you'd call a "centrist" and if anything, most elected presidents end up shifting a bit to the right when in office. It's going to be interesting to see how Trump is going to "evolve" when he take on his role as the president. Will he continue his antics as a president too? We'll have to wait and see, but I'm not hopeful that he'll change. Most people expected that he'd tone it down after he'd won the Republican nomination but the guy continued saying crazy things up until the day he was elected. The only time I thought that he toned it down a bit was with his celebratory speech after he won the elections. Up to that point he's been off the leash saying crazy things left and right. The guy is a loose canon so if nothing else this is going to be 4 years of laughing with him and his antics. I just hope that his joker will only screw up America and not the rest of the world.

So then you're saying that it's better to be uninsured, as millions of poor Americans were before Obamacare, and have no way to pay for any medical expenses if something happened to you? In the meantime, the rest of the civilized world provides free (or subsidized) health care to ALL of its citizens. By the way, shouldn't Trump be wearing a red tie in the picture above?