Amsterdam / Tolerance / Far Right

[MyMomLovesMe]

So I am reading about how this right wing/anti-immigrant party is pushing a law that will ban sale of pot to tourists in the Netherlands (a country that to me was once an example of Tolerance to the world).

Turns out the leader is this Geert Wilders (photo below)



Anyway, I did more digging and this Hitler light was actually here in Toronto on a speaking engagement.

http://linchpin.ca/content/Anti-oppr...arians-Toronto

This made me think about how ripe this whole European mess is for these nationalists with foolish pride. Greece for instance is being forced to hand over their sovereignty over their tax collection to the IMF due to their debt crisis! (story below)

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/eb91ba84-8...#axzz1NndgiPv5

...I have been following this financial crisis since it begun. It has actually been more interesting than following the raps (due to our recent suckage), and I know that this crisis is far from over. These measures are not going to work, so IMO this will only get worse.

Europe is a powder keg of nationalism. When money gets tight, and the cost of living increases those that are hurt are the poor. The poor are usually the visible minorities and immigrants. This will in turn create crime and create ripe conditions for a bozo the clown to lead some very un-evolved people.

LOL, I know this is a little out there... but what do you guys think of all this?

[heinz57]

i know nothing about this...

but i can add this... in amsterdam, the locals generally disdain tourists... and rightly so.. the majority of the tourists in amsterdam are largely college aged brits, australians, and americans.. who tend to treat your home like its one big frat party.. which can get annoying when you're just trying to LIVE.. imagine going for lunch on your lunch break, and while you're in line at BK, you have to deal with drunken shroomed up aussies acting the fool.... EVERY DAY

in rotterdam, they're much more welcoming to tourists

[MyMomLovesMe]

I never been to Amsterdam, is it that bad? Are people really that out of control? Are stoned tourists really that much of a problem and causing crime? (or fuelling it by being easy marks?)

Is prostitution still going to be okay? (not to be judgmental, but i think hookers are worse than joints)


I know that the locals in beach towns always cringe about May 24 weekend, and all the young people that it brings. At the same time, when those weekends get rained out and the businesses do not see the revenue they are also grouchy.

[heinz57]

i only spent about 4 days in amsterdam... and was totally in "college frat boy" mode... even though i was a grown ass man... and got sneered at more than a few times for my tomfoolery...

tourists there are easy marks.. holland is far from a poor place, but they do have a lower class that will take to robbing people who are clearly stoned out of their faces

the funny thing about the hookers in amsterdam.... its not that bad.. sure there's a red light district, and when you go there, it's in your face... but if you spend any time in other european cities, prostitution is much more rampant, but not confined to a specific area.. hell, you cant be on the streets of prague after 9pm without getting offered anal sex if you just go visit a certain "club"

[heinz57]

and the ganj in prague is KILLER

[MyMomLovesMe]

I have been to Prague, but only for a day of sight seeing... then we had to go catch our train. All I remember is churches and cobble stone streets with loads of tourists (and the bridge of course).

I would of loved to stay for the night life. Especially because I was there during the worlds hockey. I remember passing a bar downtown, and it said. "WE HAVE CANADIAN BEER, come watch team Canada here tonight!". Of all the little bistros and patio bars in Prague, that is the only one I remember, and I am still pissed for not missing my train that night and getting drunk on Canadian beer while rooting for team Canada in Prague.

I know it sounds silly, but being in Europe for a few weeks and having nothing but old school beer, I actually wanted a Canadian beer. It felt exotic over there.

[heinz57]

i was in europe for a year... ANYTHING canadian woulda made me happy as hell

prague is an awesome party town.. great clubs, cheap booze, easy access to proper absinthe

the flier guys for the strip joints are all over the place though... and the strip joints there are pretty much brothels

[slaw]

Europe is a powder keg of nationalism. When money gets tight, and the cost of living increases those that are hurt are the poor. The poor are usually the visible minorities and immigrants. This will in turn create crime and create ripe conditions for a bozo the clown to lead some very un-evolved people.

I have very "enlightened" (i.e. far left liberals) Jewish friends in Amsterdam who are moving to New York solely because they are afraid of the Muslim influence in that city. They tell me that the gay community there is also very concerned. I have lived and worked in London until recently and I can tell you that city is changing dramatically. Not for the better. One of our lawyers over there (an Indian chap) calls it Londonistan.

And it isn't just the "un-evolved" that are concerned. The Schengen Treaty is now basically dead. The open-borders EU dream is in ruins. Even people like David Cameron are waking up to the reality that the EU immigration system is out of control.

I see things going one of two ways in a lot of these countries: they are either going to become Muslim countries or we are going to see fascism rise again in parts of Europe. The continental Europeans don't have the same qualms about totalitarianism that we Anglos do. I keep telling people to travel to Europe now cause you won't like it much in 15 years.

[enlightenment]

hey man you don't know racial take over till you lived in Hong-couver o.O

[heinz57]

i find the least racist places tend to be the ones you'd assume would be the worst

those germans... delightful people...

[MyMomLovesMe]

We are fairly diverse here. We have a huge muslim population, why is it that I feel no sense of this polarity in Toronto?


If the world is going to be a global place, it only makes sense that professionals and people flow to where they are needed and not where the boundaries lie.


Don't get me wrong, I understand the problems of integration. However, I also feel we are a little more tolerant of others here in Toronto. I had a friend from Dubai come over and we took a cab together, our driver was Indian and I could not believe how rude he was to him. So I took him aside and told him, "listen man, we don't talk like that to others in Toronto". He told me that in Dubai, they don't treat the indians equally and there is a pecking order, of arab, expat, indian, and so forth...

Never hung out or talked to this guy again. Even though he invited me back to his Dubai villa gratis.

[MyMomLovesMe]

This just in... Seems Kammenos, Greek PM, is being accused of selling a hedge that cost the Greek Tax payer 1.3 Billion against a default on their debt. The previous government purchased this insurance because it knew it was in a pickle. The minute Kammenos party got into power they sold it to private hands, which now turn out to be made up of his family and friends. The hedge is now worth 27 Billion! What makes this even worse, during this private sale he was in negotiations with the IMF for a Greek bailout. Anyone with half a brain would have known that value of that hedge in those circumstances.

http://fromthetrenchesworldreport.co...-involved/4508

By my calculations the Greek People just got scammed to the tune of 25 Billion plus.


This all ties in to this story: The CIA is not liking the environment in Greece and say that a military coup is very possible.

http://fromthetrenchesworldreport.co...in-greece/4512

...anyway, this whole EU thing is turning out to be a way for the banks to simply push loans on the member countries and then take their tax revenues as interest payments. In essence, you control the government by lending it money.

[RaptorDan]

From the Trenches is one of those conspiracy theory "Patriot" sites, fighting against the new world order. They want to start to organize militias in every town, county, and state. This is very scary stuff.

But to Greece, what I understand is that half of the population avoids paying taxes. Almost everything is done under the table to avoid taxes, including doctors, who will only accept cash. Luxury yachts are called business expenses. You are considered stupid if you pay taxes. Bribery and corruption are rampant. This is the essence of their problem. German tax payers have bailed Greece out and now are on the hook for rampant Greek tax evasion, and they want to ensure that they get their money back. Messy.

Makes me like living where I am.

[RaptorDan]

Interesting BBC article on Greece:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programme...nt/8509244.stm

[MyMomLovesMe]

No different than what the US corporations are doing, specifically GE. They are not paying any taxes on last years returns even though they made 7 billion of their 15 Billion of global profits in the US. Instead they have one of the largest creative accounting departments to avoid taxes all together. Meanwhile states with some of the wealthiest people in the world are going broke, California.


Greece has been Greece for a long time. The only thing that is different now is that they are in MORE severe debt than before the EU. The EU wanted their membership so bad, that they were willing to overlook their books, even pretend they were in order. A lot of news has since come out that they simply looked away for the sake of the union and it has come to bite them.

Here is an interesting take:

http://www.market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=187179

BERLIN—Germany is considering dropping its push for an early rescheduling of Greek bonds in order to facilitate a new package of aid loans for Greece, according to people familiar with the matter.

Berlin's concession that it must lend Greece more money, even without burden-sharing by bondholders in the short term, would help Europe overcome its impasse over Greece's funding needs before the indebted country runs out of cash in mid-July.

What this really means is that Merkel has been apprised of the fact that her banks over there have written too many swaps and are too highly leveraged to survive a Greek default without yet another round of taxpayer funds from the Germans. She is therefore willing to risk political suicide (which is almost-certain) in order to avoid having to admit that the game-playing has continued post the original Greek crisis, and that in fact there has been no de-leveraging or cleanup of the German (and French, incidentally) balance sheets at all.

In fact, what I suspect is that these banks over in the Eurozone have been buying up these Greek bonds at a nice discount and then tendering them to the ECB on a Repo basis for cash at full par value. This of course is manifestly unsound but it's what happens when nobody can see inside the "magic box." The problem comes if Greece suddenly decides not to pay, at which point the Repo transaction becomes uncovered and the ECB is screwed.

Euro-zone governments have ruled out lending to Greece without IMF participation. Greece will face a payment crisis in July unless it receives €12 billion of credits on June 29 from the IMF and Europe, euro-zone officials say.

I'll lay even odds that Greece doesn't have until June 29th.

Meanwhile Bloomberg says:

“There’s a degree of confidence that cooler heads will prevail and the next round of assistance will be forthcoming”for Greece, said Robert Rennie, chief currency strategist in Sydney at Westpac Banking Corp.

Cooler heads? What's "cool-headed" about giving an entity that has proved it cannot balance its budget more and more money on loan?

Oh yeah, I get it - we can't possibly let the truth out. You know, the ugly truth: Greece is insolvent and so are a significant number of banks that lent it money while being levered up 30:1.

Yes, still levered 30:1. You are over there in Europe, aren't you?

Why I bet you are.

Greece was poor, but the mess was never this bad until the EU showed up. They basically gave them plastic and now are taking away their sovereignty. A lot of the top people took advantage of the situation, including major banks who on one hand were giving Greece loans and on the other hand wagering against the payback of those loans.


Iceland got royally screwed, but the people rejected the proposal that they must be responsible for the scheming of the bankers and the politicians, instead it came back to burn Dutch banks and British banks in the ass. For over-leveraging these loans on a nation that was too tiny to handle them. Iceland is the ONLY county in the world that has had the BALLS to put the bankers and politicians away who acted in appropriately to take risks for their financial gain to the detriment of their country. They are doing much better then the rest of europe now. They have a nice recovery.


Who is guilty if I give a 16 year old a credit card and say, hey rack her up. Just sign right here. Who should know better? Should predetory landing practices go unpunished? Greece was a dump for a long time, but the jerk off fantasy that is the EU did not want to admit it, and they threw money at the problem instead of making proper fixes.

Now the Greek people are being asked to give up the sovereignty over their tax collection system. I don't like articles that paint a whole nation in a bad light, I realize that British and German banks are going to lose large money if this does not right itself, but these dolts are still pushing the money on Greece! (as mentioned above)


There is lots of hard working people in Greece, and they were perfectly fine dealing with their scammers until the EU came over backing up dump trucks of cash, and now looking all bewildered that the government and accounting are a little corrupt... hrmmm. It's like going to Africa, giving politicians millions, than telling the world that you will seize mineral rights of the people because you legitimately paid some grease ball off who no one can now find.


The idiots who lent them money, should lose it. There is a risk to money landing, sometimes if you burden someone too much, they go bankrupt. That is how risk works, but of course its the IMF, so we will not let that happen. Its easier to tear apart a country and always get your profits and never really be at risk of default, even if you are STILL PUSHING MONEY on them.... ah well, such is the greed of the world. Make the Germans pay the debt, and strip Greece of the assets. Meanwhile the people are the ones that suffer.