Moody's Website Hacked by Portuguese Citizens

[Harrison]

I saw yesterday on the UK news that they had downgraded Portugal to "trash" status. I don't think doing this is ever going to help a country try to recover. It definitely looks like Portugal are trying harder than Greece to sort things out quickly.

It definitely is money related. The stock market and probably the rest of Europe are trying methods to distance themselves from both Portugal, Greece and to a lessor extent Ireland. However I can't see the Euro standing up as a single currency much longer if more countries start to default on their loans and face bankruptcy. I'm glad the UK stayed out of the Euro, as it never seemed a good idea to centralise a monetary system over such a wide and diverse range of countries. They all have such different economies, different revenue streams.. etc and trying to get them all to run from a single one value currency in my view wouldn't work.

Even though the UK never entered the Euro I am glad we are standing up to our responsibilities and trying to help as best we can. Many in the UK are really complaining that we should not be lending money to the rest of Europe when our own economy isn't doing very well itself. However they just don't seem to realise that it is much larger than just one country and we couldn't just try to isolate ourselves from everyone else because it has now become a global economy and one country in Europe failing has a huge impact on the rest.

I think the only solution is to centralise the whole of Europe. It has a single currency, and a central parliament in Brussels. The problem so far is that other than that Countries don't want to merge into a single large union, with each becoming like a member state. Each wants to remain in control of its own borders and power, and not centralise the responsibility to a single central government. However I think this is the only way to eventually make Europe work.

And I am shaking my head at the USA at the moment. They are one of the most powerful countries in the world, and yet are facing defaulting on their own countries lending. Heading quickly towards the 3 Trillion limit on their country's loans, and if they hit this wouldn't doing something quickly they would also be facing bankruptcy! It is mad that their poloticons continue to argue and refuse to agree on any measures that are needed. They only have 4 weeks until the deadline and it happens. Mad.

The thing I'm worried about is China. They are feeling it a bit, but are the current economic power that is remaining largely unaffected by it all. They have stated they want to invest money into Europe to help the failing economy. I definitely don't want that to happen. Half of Europe's problems already are China, with farming our industry out to them for cheaper manufacturing and bigger instant profits. This has left Europe without much real manufacturing of its own, reducing exports and relying a lot more on importing everything. If China also start to lend money to Europe we would all be holding to them and it could end up like the crisis in Africa where European countries lent them money with just high interest rates and terms and conditions that they could never hope to repay it. Not good. We need to keep China out of it.

[Tiago]

I Agree.
What piss me off, is that one one the major reasons my country is in deap shix, is that previous goverments spent a lot of money in a lot of crap.
Plus, corruption, retirements of big leaders... etc... etc... etc... most of the companies leaders receive huge salaries, compared with the rest of europe sometimes is more then the average of europe countries. But, most of the people, me, my friend, my neigbour, we dont have nothing to do it this shix.... i work 40 hours a week, i pay my taxes, neve run away from them, and i am always paying for the shix goverment do. It's not far.

Plus, i have to read all fucxxxx crap that the rest of europe write about my country, and there's nothing i could do. (as a single person).

[Harrison]

It has definitely been long standing corruption in the political and banking systems of the whole world that has led us to this current crisis. And finally we are seeing it all being uncovered and those involved exposed and removed from position. It has need to be done for a very long time. It was just a shame it had to be a global financial crisis that made it happen.

It also shows that no country is really a democracy, and in reality never could be. As you say, as individual people none of use have any real influence over anything that happens in the larger world. All we have the power to do is add one vote to try and get someone we prefer into office to try and act as our voice to represent out views in our country. But often we are left feeling powerless to change anything happening.

Equally I don't believe the idea of true democratic process would ever work in a country, much like true communism can never work. If everyone was of equal intellect, education and background only then would such a thing be possible, and that will never be possible. And so it is not possible to give every people an equal say in everything that is done. Many just would not understand. In an ideal world it would be great. In the real would it just is not feasible.