Month: October 2012

09:16 – I’ve just set a new policy. If the USPS loses a package, I’m not going to waste any time trying to resolve the issue with USPS. I’ll just write it off and ship a replacement. It happens seldom enough–a small fraction of one percent in our case so far–that it’s just not worth wasting time to get a determination, which I’m told is almost always “we lost it; tough luck”. Even at that, it’s still much cheaper to ship USPS than to use UPS or FedEx. The packages get to their destinations in one to three days, and we’ve had very little shipping damage. So, I conclude that USPS can be very annoying, but they’re still by far our best option.

We’re just about finished packaging chemicals for a batch of 30 biology kits. We’ve also done 30 sets of the chemicals that (so far) will be included in the Life Science kits, which are a subset of those in the biology kits. All of those chemicals–stains and so on–have essentially unlimited shelf lives, so there was no downside to making them up now. In fact, like wines, some stains actually improve with age.

Back when I was a teenager, I couldn’t afford a good microscope. Back then, even student models were extremely expensive, probably the equivalent of $1,500 or more in today’s dollars. One of my parents’ friends gave me a WWI-era Zeiss microscope. I wish I still had it. I think it was probably produced for the German military. It came in a beautiful fitted wooden case that also included an assortment of accessories, including several stains. I remember thinking at the time that there was no way the stains could possibly still be good, since they were at least 50 years old. A couple of the bottles were empty or had dried out, but there were three or four that looked untouched. So I tried them, and they worked very well.

11:26 – This latest EU summit, like all of the other 20-odd EU summits since the beginning of the euro crisis, accomplished essentially nothing. The position of Greece, Spain, Italy, and the other spendthrift states remains unchanged: “We want Germany to pay all of our debts and continue to subsidize our irresponsible spending. Oh, yeah, and Germany can’t dictate terms to us. Just give us the money.” And Germany’s position also remains unchanged: “We’re fed up with paying everyone’s debts. We just want to get out of this mess as cheaply as possible. Ask us for anything other than more money.”

It seems that Rajoy and Spain are finally beginning to realize they’re not going to get the bailout-that-can’t-be-called-a-bailout. If Spain wants to beg money from the ECB and the ESM, they’re going to have to do so explicitly and accept whatever terms Germany insists on. Doing that would finish Rajoy politically, and he knows it. Rajoy is between the proverbial rock and hard place. He’s already made veiled threats to exit the euro, which would inevitably also mean exiting the EU. Spain’s debt for 2012 is essentially all sold already, but Spain is in deep trouble in 2013, when it has to sell hundreds of billions of euros of debt. Spain has zero prospect of doing this at all, let alone affordably, which means Spain is almost certain to default on a massive scale in 2013. Either that, or leave the euro, which amounts to the same thing. Creditors will no doubt be paid back in worthless local currency, artificially pegged to the euro at 1:1.

10:20 – Work on the new batch of biology kits is proceeding apace, but we’re now down to just two chemistry kits in stock. Fortunately, we have everything we need to build 15 more quickly, but then the well runs dry. So, as soon as we finish this batch of 30 biology kits, we’ll start on another batch of 30 chemistry kits. The chemistry kits outsell the biology kits about 1.5:1, and kit sales have slowed seasonally, so the new batches should last us at least a month, if not through the end of November. Of course, starting in late November, kit sales tend to pick up for Christmas and second semester, so we’ll need to get more in the queue.

It’s difficult to see how things in the eurozone could be much worse on the eve of the first full EU summit since June. French and German leaders always hate each other, and Hollande and Merkel are no different. The difference this time is that they’re not keeping it private. Ordinarily, the French and German leaders meet on the eve of an EU summit and essentially agree on the agenda and decisions ahead of time. This time, Merkel and Hollande are in disagreement on everything, and are tossing public barbs at each other. The Greek talks with the Troika have collapsed entirely, with Greece saying there’s no way it’ll agree to the Troika terms. That means Greece runs completely out of money in the next six weeks, with no prospect of getting any anywhere. The markets are closed to them, the IMF won’t bail them out, and the EU won’t bail them out. That means Greece will default, not just on bonds but on public salaries and pensions and payments to the companies that are importing desperately needed food and medicines, or were importing them until they stopped getting paid. Meanwhile, as its price for continuing to support any EU bailouts, Germany is apparently now insisting on an EU fiscal overlord, which simply isn’t going to be accepted by other EU members. Obviously, Germany has already decided that enough is enough, but instead of just saying “nein” explicitly, they’re setting conditions that they know will never be accepted. That way, Germany can at least say “we tried” when the whole pathetic euro edifice collapses.

14:46 – Oh, wait. The Troika and the Greeks have kissed and made up. (Now there’s a disgusting image…) Greece says it’s going to get the long-delayed bail-out tranche in time to avoid catastrophe. The Troika says they and the Greek government have agreed on “broad outlines” of the terms needed to allow the bail-out to go ahead, albeit without additional IMF funds. The truth is, the IMF, the EU, and the ECB are all terrified at what’s going to happen when-not-if Greece collapses. When they talk about contagion from a Greek collapse being “containable”, they’re whistling past the graveyard, and they know it. Of course, as they say, the devil is in the details, and it wouldn’t surprise me if this latest deal, like so many others, collapses as a result of those little details. Yet one more attempt to buy time with smoke and mirrors. The trouble is, they’re running out of time. And smoke and mirrors.