{"id":10021,"date":"2011-06-25T10:30:47","date_gmt":"2011-06-25T14:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=10021"},"modified":"2011-06-25T10:30:47","modified_gmt":"2011-06-25T14:30:47","slug":"tim-harford-analyzes-the-ecbs-real-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2011\/06\/25\/tim-harford-analyzes-the-ecbs-real-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim Harford analyzes the ECB&#8217;s real problem"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/timharford.com\/2011\/06\/smashing-plates-wont-rescue-this-taverna\/\" target=\"_blank\">Tim Harford<\/a> puts the head of the ECB (Essex Community Business association) on the couch:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cWith all due respect, doctor, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s me who needs to see a shrink.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t worry. A lot of people feel a bit awkward when they first lie on this couch. This is a safe, non-judgmental space.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wish the Essex Community Business association was as relaxed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut you\u2019re the chairman of the ECB association. Tell me why you feel that way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLook, I always felt that the ECB association was supposed to be an informal talking shop, a way for people with shared interests to make new friends and perhaps even launch joint projects. Everyone was really happy when Georgios, the new owner of the Plaka Taverna, wanted to join &mdash; the more the merrier.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>[. . .]<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo if I understand the situation, you\u2019re lending money to Georgios that you know he can never pay back, and demanding that his staff make sacrifices they are transparently unwilling to make, in order to protect Mr Saville\u2019s bank, in order to protect Jos\u00e9, who in some unspecified way is connected to Georgios\u2019s fate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt does sound a bit strange when you put it like that. I think the theory is that if we don\u2019t throw money and yell impractical and unwelcome management advice at a transparently bankrupt business, then maybe a perfectly viable business will be damaged. Especially since there won\u2019t be any money left, because we\u2019ll have given it all to Georgios, who will have given it all to his waiters. Does that make sense?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tim Harford puts the head of the ECB (Essex Community Business association) on the couch: \u201cWith all due respect, doctor, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s me who needs to see a shrink.\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t worry. A lot of people feel a bit awkward when they first lie on this couch. This is a safe, non-judgmental space.\u201d \u201cI [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,62,57],"tags":[436,71],"class_list":["post-10021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-europe","category-humour","tag-banking","tag-debt"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-2BD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10021"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10022,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10021\/revisions\/10022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}