1152 Trouble on Treasure Island or the Watch With No Hands

1152 Trouble on Treasure Island or The Watch With No Hands

News Item:  The European Union has reached tentative agreement to bail out ailing Cyprus, force most of the most crooked banks to close, dropped a proposed tax on individual deposits and potentially saved the country from bankruptcy.

In the old days in Nicosia, his name was Charalambos Kenthos.  Here in the states, he’s Charlie Kent.  Doesn’t fool anyone but they all assume he’s Greek, not Greek Cypriot because no one here knows the difference.

Charlie left the old country about the time the Euro became high fashion money, sometime in the early 90s.

Why?  “This is bogus.  If you’re a country, you can’t use someone else’s money.” The Cyprus Pound wasn’t terribly healthy at the time.  And now, all these years later, the Euro doesn’t look all that healthy either, especially from Charlie’s little island.

“The Greek Cypriots are shady and the Turkish Cypriots are not getting sunburned either,” says Charlie.  “We have more banks per capita than any other country in the E.U. and that tax the deposits thing?  Talk about your weasel deals!”

Charlie says the main business of banking in his homeland is money laundering.  “Who do you think has all the big deposits?  It’s Russian thieves, Turkish thieves, American thieves and anyone else who is lowlife enough to be unwelcome in Switzerland, the Bahamas, Italy, India and a half dozen African republics.”

The big money boys are the people pressuring the Cyprus banks and government.  The little guys  -- surprise, surprise -- don’t count. And what do the banks do with all that money?  Why they invest it in such lucrative, high return products as the Governments of Greece and Portugal.  Smart fellas, these bankers.

Charlie likens the EU to a watch with no hands... dozens of moving parts whirring away with furious speed and energy but function-free; making loud ticking sounds, being glanced at every so often just out of habit.

Shrapnel:

--Doubt as we may, there could be something to all this physical fitness nonsense.  Remember Jack LaLanne who lived to 96?  Joe Weider, the weight lifter guy, just passed away at a relatively young 93. Charles Atlas, creator of the “I was a 98 pound weakling” only made it to 82, so there’s hope for the rest of us.

--Homeopathic remedies are all the rage these days, the theory being lotions and potions of old are more effective than modern day pharmaceuticals.  This raises an important question:  Why has life expectancy risen steadily since the advent of real medicine?  The mystics of flower power don’t have an answer.

--Once people came up with the germ theory, made aspirin and started using Listerine as an operating room antiseptic, life grew longer.  Granted Big Pharma comes from the same philosophical base as the Cypriot bankers and has gotten out of hand, they’re still why 85 is the new 65.  Fixing bad chemistry with good chemistry still beats the useless witches’ brews the homeopathics would have us use.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

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© WJR 2013