Greek Fire

It has been over a thousand years since Greece was this important in the world.  They probably had more enjoyment from their status of power in those earlier years than they are enjoying from their influence today.

Greece has a long and remarkable history that is chock full of accomplishments.  The world's first maritime merchant culture--the Minoan Civilization--was centered on the Greek island of Crete about 3500 years ago.  So, too, was the world's first indoor plumbing:  Minoan palaces contain remnants of indoor toilets complete with flushing water.  A thousand years later the Golden Age Greeks were debating politics and democracy, competing in the Olympics--competition was in the nude, logos having not yet been invented and so there was no compelling reason to wear something that might hinder an athlete's abilities--and they were creating all manner of arts, literature and science.  Business was important to them, too:  the Greek cities sent out expeditions that established colonies throughout the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions.  These colonies were formed primarily for commercial reasons; many of them became successful, powerful and wealthy in their own rights, and they enriched the mother cities through trade and commerce.

These accomplishments, and others, were merely foundations for success in the view of an enterprising young Macedonian named Alexander of the late 4th Century BC.  Fearing that there would be nothing left for him to conquer after his father had unified all of Greece under Macedonian control, he decided to forsake the advantages of higher education and instead used a Greek army to create the largest empire that the world had seen, thereby extending Greek influence far to the east over Anatolia, Persia, Mesopatamia, and parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, and southward to encompass all of wealthy Egypt.  The Italian peninsula and the growing power of Rome probably would have been Alexander's next acquisitions if not for his untimely death.  Instead, Rome grew; soon, its empire absorbed Greece and much of Alexander's empire.

Eventually, the worm turned, and by the early years of the 4th Century (current era) a Greek city named Constantinople had become the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire.  Commonly called the Byzantine Empire--Constantinople was located on top of an old Greek town called Byzantium, and so we moderns have adopted the shorter and more evocative terminology to describe the resulting political organization--it picked up where the Roman Empire left off and by the middle of the 6th Century had become the superpower of Europe, North Africa and the Mediterranean area.

Superpowers need super weapons, and the Byzantine Greeks had one; it was called Greek Fire.  First used in combat during the mid-7th Century, Greek Fire was a combustible and semi-fluid mixture that could ignited and then hurled at the enemy over a considerable distance, and was especially effective in the naval warfare of the day (fire + wooden ships = ashes on the water).  Though the Byzantines successfully maintained the secrets of Greek Fire--even today its formulation is unknown--after a couple of centuries of frequent use it lost much of its superiority as others developed similar weapons.

With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight we can see that by the 11th Century the Empire--beset on all sides by belligerent and growing territorial powers and without a decisive technological edge--was toast (pun intended) and so Greece was forced to say "farewell" to its lengthy position of influence on the world's stage.

Until now.

Today the world is in thrall to the new Greek super weapon.  That weapon is Greek Debt.  It's exact composition is unknown, and it seems to be squirting everywhere, and it is definitely combustible.  The Greeks are accused by all around them of wielding this weapon without regard to consequences, and solely for their own benefit.  It seems to be an insidious weapon with sticky, icky, gooey and incendiary characteristics that has managed to seep into the financial underpinnings of Germany, France, Italy, Britain, the United States and perhaps even beyond!

And we Americans have been lately so self-absorbed that we thought our $14 trillion national debt was the world's biggest story.  It's a comeuppance for us to realize that a nation with a tiny fraction of our amount of debt might be able to cause the downfall of the mighty euro currency and then perhaps send shockwaves of financial panic rippling around the globe.

This is the influence that is now unintentionally wielded by a nation of about 11 million people, which makes it about the same size as Los Angeles County.  It's weight on the economic scales is smaller, as long as you do not count the value of all that gorgeous Greek island real estate.

A major difference between the Greek and the American situations is, of course, that even as the rest of the world is aghast at our recent political brinkmanship with regard to the national security issues of US sovereign debt they continue in the belief that America can eventually grow its way out of its debt.  Greece, on the other hand, has a visibly shrinking economy--perhaps, at last reckoning, at the rate of 4% or 5% per year.

Many people believe that the Greeks caused all this mess through tax evasion, fraud, laziness, early retirements, too much government employment and ownership of businesses, and other shenanigans.  There is much truth in that.

And it is also true that vacationing Germans, for example, enjoy the beautiful Greek venues which are amply supplied with electricity by Greek government owned utility operations that seem to operate well and profitably.  And the outputs of German manufacturers can be sold without tariffs throughout the Greek nation.  And so on.

You probably wonder, as do I, what it is that the Greeks intend to do with this new-found power of theirs.

Perhaps they would prefer not to have it.  (Many smart and wise people are spending lots of time and effort to determine if it is even possible for Greece to give up this incredible power without causing a great amount of pain and suffering, financial and otherwise.  Power is the consequence of fear, in this case fear of default on the debt.  Once Greece defaults on the debt, or once a way is found to avoid default, then the fear and the power dissipate.)

You probably wonder, as do I, how they benefit from this. 

Perhaps some Greeks benefit, and others do not.  (Whatever it is they are to gain, or to be accused of gaining, must be accomplished prior to the resolution of the debt issue, because once the fear is gone then so too is the power.)

I will find out next week.

Taxes and Jobs

Everything is changing.  People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.

We see this happen every day, but this is not my original observation.  For one thing, I have never taken a comedian seriously.  Credit for the anecdote goes to the American actor Will Rogers.  His thought seems relevant and on-target today, even though Rogers died in 1935, making his comment most of a century old.

Rogers apparently had a sackful of these worldly observations; two others that I have dug out of that bag set the stage for today's writing.  Here they are:

• Everyone is ignorant, only in different subjects.
• The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has.

The President's Jobs Plan

The plan gets a B+ grade.  Yesterday we heard a 30 minute speech by the President--some of which was political posturing, no doubt about that--so there will be many more details to be released over the next few days. Perhaps the grade will eventually change in one direction or the other.  It depends on the revealed details, as well as the quality and effectiveness of upcoming actions as follow-ups to the articulation of the plan.

Even so, the amount of content packed into the allotted time is impressive.  The White House released a transcript of the speech which forms the basis for this writing.  In the summary below, the terminology is extracted directly from the transcript as much as possible, while omitting the interpolated (applause) and (laughter).  Why do they put those things in there, anyway?  Thankfully, they leave out things like (yawn) and (burp) and (cough).

In case you haven't yet heard, the price tag is quoted as $447 billion, about half of which is attributed to a continued and expanded payroll tax reduction.  Those figures do not show up in the transcript of the speech.  Somebody with an MBA probably took the numbers that were included in the speech and plugged them into a spreadsheet to come up with the total.  Somebody else without an MBA--or maybe in wanting to check the spreadsheet's results, the MBA person did this, too--likely pulled out a calculator and did the mathematics using that tool and came up with the same answer.

Horsefeathers and American Government

We are being dragged down by all the horsefeathers in American government and politics these days.  It is certain that there will be even more horsefeathers after President Obama's address tomorrow evening to a joint session of Congress on the subject of the nation's economy and its need for the on-going creation of more jobs.  (Yes, "horsefeathers" can be used as one word in addition to two words.  Check out the entertaining article on the origin of this American slang expression at the British site The Phrase Finder , and for more go over to The Internet Movie Database for synopsis and information on the Marx Brothers' 1932 movie "Horse Feathers."  Something from the movie later in this writing.)

Since there is no point in trying to anticipate the content of the speech--let's just wait for it and then talk about it once the facts are known--this writing will set forth a framework in which to evaluate any such well-considered proposals, and also the entire political environment that will culminate in next year's elections.  The framework will probably grow and change over time, but this will be a good start.  Here it is:

DAMN the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

During the 19th Century, including the American Civil War, the word "torpedo" referred to any explosive charge.  Today--and since the end of that century--the word "mine" has replaced it when referring to explosives that are hidden in the ground or are mostly out of view by floating somewhere under water.

By mid-1864 Mobile Bay, Alabama was the last major seaport still in Confederate hands.  Admiral David Farragut, local commander of the US Navy, was determined to reclaim the Bay and the surrounding territory for the Union as part of the strategy to bring the Civil Way to its conclusion.  Confederate forces defending Mobile Bay had thoroughly saturated those waters with floating mines--"torpedoes" by the standards of the day.  The torpedoes were cleverly placed so that any ships entering the bay would have to pass directly under the guns of Fort Morgan in order to avoid sailing through the line of torpedoes.  Any ships able to successfully pass the fort would next encounter the powerful Confederate ironclad Tennessee.

On August 5, 1864 Admiral Farragut's naval force entered the channel leading into Mobile Bay.  The lead ship in the line of battle was quickly disabled after colliding with one of the torpedoes, and all of his remaining warships slowed, lost headway, and began drifting under the guns of Fort Morgan.  As disaster loomed for the attacking Union squadron, Admiral Farragut shouted out to the captains of the surviving ships "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"  The torpedoes encountered by the first ships failed to explode; the remaining ships in the line followed in their wakes, overwhelmed the defenders and soon took control of Mobile Bay for the Union.

He was bold.  He got lucky.  He won.