So Greece got its extra money. Regardless if Greece is really on the right track or not, there is no surprise in this decision. End of last year the eurogroup decided Greece would remain in the euro. Not giving them the extra money now would mean they would not be able to honour their financial commitments and a full blown government crisis. In other words, back to full crisis mode and this only 3 months before elections in Germany. No way this would happen. So the money is on its way (thanks to Reuters we have access to the full troika document http://t.co/pcQAlSgyts). Greece did commit to fire 150000 of its 750000 civil servants. By now we all know the stories of many of those who got a government job and salary but don't actually work. Well that may be but the redundancies are aimed mostly at teachers, police agents and cleaning personnel who have been working last 6 months without being payed. All of this does not sound really fair to me, nor to many Greeks. More strikes and demonstrations are expected but Greece will stumble on until after the German elections. After that, expect another full blown eurocrisis around Greece with Cyprus and Portugal in close pursuit.
By the way the Cypriot president said this week that in practice his country is no longer part of the euro (because of the capital controls - did you read my blog of last week Mr President?). And the Portuguese prime minister made a public speech saying that after 2 ministers leaving he prefers not to call for new elections but asks for a government of technocrats supported by all political parties in order not to loose support from the troika. Organising elections now would not be in the benefit of the country he said. Maybe so, but where do these people find the democratic legitimacy to continue ruling as they please? After Greece and Italy who both had their own technocratic governments now it is Portugal that is heading down that road. So what Europe really seems to be about is a new democracy: as long as you do what we say you get your money, if you can't do it as a democratically elected government, then you do it as a technocratic one and we will tell you who to put in charge. Is this the Europe we want???
I read 'The Tipping Point' by Maxwell Gladwell, a book I was made aware off about a year ago but is in fact a lot older (published in 2000). I must say that I am somewhat disappointed. The book is about the moment when something goes over a tipping point and becomes a success or an epidemic. But this is a bit misleading, the book is more about what helps that something to tip over a specific point rather than about that point itself. It is interesting but what it comes down to is how can you influence something and help it reach that tipping point. Now if this is what you are after then I have another much better book to recommend: Influence: science and practice by Robert Cialdini.
By the way the Cypriot president said this week that in practice his country is no longer part of the euro (because of the capital controls - did you read my blog of last week Mr President?). And the Portuguese prime minister made a public speech saying that after 2 ministers leaving he prefers not to call for new elections but asks for a government of technocrats supported by all political parties in order not to loose support from the troika. Organising elections now would not be in the benefit of the country he said. Maybe so, but where do these people find the democratic legitimacy to continue ruling as they please? After Greece and Italy who both had their own technocratic governments now it is Portugal that is heading down that road. So what Europe really seems to be about is a new democracy: as long as you do what we say you get your money, if you can't do it as a democratically elected government, then you do it as a technocratic one and we will tell you who to put in charge. Is this the Europe we want???
I read 'The Tipping Point' by Maxwell Gladwell, a book I was made aware off about a year ago but is in fact a lot older (published in 2000). I must say that I am somewhat disappointed. The book is about the moment when something goes over a tipping point and becomes a success or an epidemic. But this is a bit misleading, the book is more about what helps that something to tip over a specific point rather than about that point itself. It is interesting but what it comes down to is how can you influence something and help it reach that tipping point. Now if this is what you are after then I have another much better book to recommend: Influence: science and practice by Robert Cialdini.
Proba-V is a satellite launched on May 7 and 100% Belgian (yes!). It's about the size of a washing machine and its task is to map land cover and vegetation growth across the entire planet every two days. The data can also be used for day-by-day tracking of extreme weather, alerting authorities to crop failures, monitoring inland water resources and tracing the steady spread of deserts and deforestation. They just released the first image:
You can read all about it here: http://www.esa.int/Our_
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