Got to say that the article reads like the person writing it is doing so whilst wearing a tin foil hat to stop the evil oligarchs from reading his mind. There is no argument that people at the top in the developed world got greedy and some utterly unscrupulous people engaged in criminal activities with sub-prime debt sales but for every seller there has to be a buyer and equally qualified individuals looked at what was on offer and decided to pay good money for something pretty worthless but to go from this to a ruthless international cabal of bankers running the world, placing puppet governments in place to feed the rapacious desires of the military-industrial complex through privatisations at undervalue seems to be using similar log tables to the bankers who sold the sub-prime debt in the first place by making two and two equal 897,000,512. Or maybe I am part of the cabal making sure that the NCFC board stay in line. If TMC ceases posting you'll know that the endgame has started wooh ha hah ha!
It is pointless just going over who caused Greece to get into this mess. The whole World went into recession and nowhere was it the fault of the man in the street. It was the fault of the Banks(mainly), profiteers, property developers building massive amounts of property and then defaulting etc etc but at the end of the day it is always Joe Public that ends up picking up the tab. It is one of the joys of the system - the people who cause the problem get big pay packets and Knighthoods whilst Joe Public get a kick in the bum. The big difference is that the rest of the world took the medicine - Greece won't. Despite having a Civil Service 3 times the size of Germany's they don't collect taxes. Tax evasion is a National Sport and actively encouraged and the Government don't want to do anything about it because too many people would be upset. Over here Pension age is heading towards 70 but the Greeks still want to retire at 55 - 50 in many instances - with an immediate pension and again the Government don't want to take action as it would make them unpopular. Quite bluntly the Greek economy has collapsed and unless they agree to immediate drastic reforms - which they have and still are refusing to do - the lenders will stop lending because, without those reforms, they will be back in the same position next year. If the lenders just cancelled or substantially deferred the debt the Countries, and their electorates, who have taken the pain and are now coming out the other side would, quite rightly, be up in arms. I do not agree that the severe austerity policies followed in the West were right or the best way forward but having seen them through you cannot expect their taxpayers to fund another Country to keep the benefits that they have lost.
Fair points 1950. Crazy that an economically bust country has drawn a red line over upping their pension age or lowering pensions. Very hard to sell to the German's that it is OK for them to have to work deep in their 60's to fund Greek's being able to retire a decade earlier. Same logic with the civil service over there and the lack of effective tax collection. I don't think that anyone seriously blames the Greek people for the global economic crisis but let's be fair they have hardly helped themselves with the policies they have had in place. If someone offered me a decent state pension for life at 55 I'd take it just as many Greeks have done and if someone offered me a comfy job for life in the civil service again I'd go with it and likewise if paying tax is pretty much optional then given the two choices I'd certainly go with less tax so you can't blame the individuals for making the best of the situation they are in BUT if a significant proportion of the population do it then it is no wonder that the country is utterly broke.
Perhaps the Greeks see the 60bn Euro bail out from Germany as pretty fair compensation for the slaughter and rape of so many of their women and children during WWII as well as the Nazis occupation of their country ? I can see why they wouldn't be too interested in paying anything back to the Germans especially the older generation, but with regard to the other EU states that have chipped in ? Well they're just not playing cricket are they ? ......a bit like England today
By that logic you'll be sending your next pay-check over to Africa as compensation for our historical links to the slave trade or maybe over to Ireland to recompense them for Cromwell's actions? I think that the Greeks are taking the proverbial by bringing that up. It wasn't WW2 that caused this crisis it was their policies in the post-war period and their decision to join the Euro. Like any club you have to play by the rules or the other members will get rid of you. I presume that your tongue is in the region of your cheek writing this but the kind of lazy blame someone else for what we have done attitude really irritates me.
Just wondering, as I really don't know the answer, but did the Greece economy - with it's much reported early retirement age and huge public sector - ever have such difficulties before it joined the Eurozone?
The Greek economy has been in a mess long before they joined the Euro. They did not meet the criteria to join but rules were bent to let them in on the understanding that they would take action to rectify matters which they never did. They have just borrowed more and more and now have reached the point of no return.
They've also been through one, if not two periods of hyperinflation during the 20th century, which led to them having to reset the value of their currency to get out of it. I'm certainly no economist, but as well as being ruinous for the general public, doesn't hyperinflation do a great job of cutting your debts, presuming they're in the same currency?
This is the problem Ireland had with the Euro. It removes much of the flexibility that individual governments have to deal with economic problems,principally the ability to vary interest rates and allow variations in exchange rates.
I have no hidden agenda here and try to view situations objctively but there is no getting away from the fact that Labour spent money like it was going out of fashion and were extremely reckless. Who in their right mind would pay housing benefit of over £26,000 per year to a claiming family? And look at the ruckus caused when the coalition tried to reduce it to the £26k limit? That would cost a working taxpayer roughly £40k per year and that is before they buy a loaf of bread. Please explain Tony how that is fair and Labor were blameless. This by the way is but one example.
On another point I also understand that Greeks retire at 55, do not pay for public transport and have free funerals. Also 50% work in the public sector!! I have to say that Germany and France are partly complicit in this fiasco because there is no way that these clowns should ever have been allowed anywhere near the Euro, yet criteria were fudged and chickens have come home to roost. What a bloody mess!
You may not have an agenda, but you also don't have a very good understanding of economics if you actually believe that the few thousand families who claimed the maximum amount of benefits had anything to do with the global financial meltdown! Regardless of the fact what that these people up a small proportion of the welfare bill (the majority goes on pensions, top ups for people in work and often unscrupulous landlords), 26k isn't an enormous amount of money for a FAMILY to live on - try doing that in London! This myth that these people live a life of luxury because some of them dare to smoke and/or drink alcohol is one of the biggest lies going, it's bloody hard feeding and clothing a family in this world we live in! And as for Labour's reckless spending - can you tell me which of the decaying, decrepit hospitals, schools and community centres they shouldn't have spent money on redeveloping and improving during their time in charge? This all just sounds like Daily Mail/Express/Telegraph rhetoric to me, again if you really look into it and think about it all with an open mind I honestly don't think you'll believe it.
You are correct of course but also retirement at 55 and giving people jobs in the Public sector when there is no work for them to do does wonders for your unemployment figures!! Unfortunately Greece has now run out of ' cheating options ' but unfortunately the Greek politicians and electorate refuse to accept that their life of Riley cannot continue in the real world and still expect everybody else to work until they drop and then just send their savings to Greece.
