All economics might be politics, but all business certainly isn't. When you ask politicians or pundits to run manufacturing companies, things usually go down the drain. Fast.

According to a recent WEF survey, Greece has the lowest competitivness of all EU nations. Greece has slipped from place 50 to place 109 on the World Banks list of the best places to run a business, below countries like Bangladesh or Ethiopia. Big stumbling blocks are things like inefficient government bureaucracy and massive corruption. During 2004-2009, employment in the public sector increased by 100.000 people, largely as a reward for political loyalty. At the same time, public salaries rose by 60 %. How this could not result is a fiscal disaster, is hard to understand. It's just not possible to keep spending more than you tax, year after year, and especially not when you're in the good part of the business cycle!

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.