Enron, German War Reparations & Putin

With Greece's economic household being a mess for many years now and with its arbitrary and creative presentation of budgets, deficits and surpluses in them seem like a mere mathematical issue and an issue of formal presentation and selection of a particular set of accounting rules in their preparation. While some present the same condition of the country arriving at a deficit, others present the same facts arriving at a surplus. And the span between these two determine the quality and living standard of a whole nation. It seems quite absurd, if you ask me, and my general perception is that our lives have been reduced to accounting entries and methods. It is a dematerialised approach to economics, where thinner or thicker air is deciding on issues such as, how much money I should earn, how high or low my taxes should be or whether my pension should be cut massively or should be increased. At the level of State it is only business as usual and that environment appears to be protected against the impact of the whatever accounting results. Interestingly enough, during times of neediness people tend to come up with the most creative and occasionally forward thinking ideas. One such great idea that was put on the table by some MPs, during the economically tight days, was to incorporate our legitimate claims for WW II Reparations against Germany into our budget. The idea seemed brilliant at the time, as it would allow us to show better economic results to our partners. Well, people sitting on the other side of the Atlantic would point their finger at you now, saying that "we tought the world that these things don't work" when we allowed the Enron scandal. For those who do not remember the Enron scandal, in short, the Corporation was including future expected earnings into current income, thus showing massive profits, while its cash-shortage lead to bankruptcy. Well...I think we all remember Enron. The point is, that even from an accounting perspective you are supposed to enter provisions related to doubtful claims and thus deduct them from income. Having said that, I have probably indirectly voiced my opinion about the collectibility of our claims against Germany. And all of that until yesterday...when Tsar Vladimir Putin in a gesture of friendship towards Greece and complete change of geopolitical course in Russia's foreign policy in the Balkans caused a massive earthquake to Germany announcing that Russia will also move forward with posing its own claim against Germany for WW II Reparations. Now the whole issue of Greece's claims has taken on a completely new form, wouldn't you agree? You just gotta love politics!