wow - how much is their state pension?
edit: just checked - it is about equal to ours in the UK
Options for the EU? - A cartoon from the Lebanese Daily Star
by fulltimestudent 27 Replies latest social current
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Ruby456
too true prologos.
we normally vote labour but we voted conservative in the last gen election because we felt that they would be more responsible with the country's finances despite the fact that as individuals we would have been slightly better off under labour. Mind you we could also see that the private sector did not like Milliband's far left econmics and were reluctant to support him as much as they would have supported a more centre left party.
I think the Greeks need a change from the Syriza party
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prologos
greeks will say anything, vote any way, as their parliament just did, but mean: just give us the money, more money. -
fulltimestudent
Two forecasters who got it right:
There are others, but two will suffice. From: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-15/nine-people-who-saw-the-greek-crisis-coming-years-before-everyone-else-did
First there was Wynne Godley, a British economist wrote about his own concerns in a 1992 article for the London Review of Books:
What happens if a whole country—a potential ‘region’ in a fully integrated community—suffers a structural setback? So long as it is a sovereign state, it can devalue its currency. It can then trade successfully at full employment provided its people accept the necessary cut in their real incomes. With an economic and monetary union, this recourse is obviously barred, and its prospect is grave indeed unless federal budgeting arrangements are made which fulfil a redistributive role. ... If a country or region has no power to devalue, and if it is not the beneficiary of a system of fiscal equalisation, then there is nothing to stop it suffering a process of cumulative and terminal decline leading, in the end, to emigration as the only alternative to poverty or starvation.
And second, Arnulf Baring, a German political scientist (?) who offered dire predictions in his 1997 book Scheitert Deutschland? Here's an English translation:
They will say that we are subsidizing scroungers, lounging in cafés on the Mediterranean beaches. Monetary union, in the end, will result in a gigantic blackmailing operation. When we Germans demand monetary discipline, other countries will blame their financial woes on that same discipline, and by extension, on us. More, they will perceive us as a kind of economic policeman. We risk once again becoming the most hated in Europe.
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Saintbertholdt
My two cents:
1. Greece should default on all its sovereign debt. No-one will want to lend the country any more money for about a decade but now Greece also has zero debt. These are both actually very good things.
2. Re-introduce the Drachma.
3. Calculate government expenditure for ten years, which includes pensions, government salaries, public works expenditure etc. Announce the printing of the needed funds for the first year at 100% of funds. Reduce the printing every year by 10% so that by year 10 Greece will be printing 0% additional currency for running the government side of the economy. This is done so that the currency deflates with calculated clockwork regularity over the next decade.
4. Announce that Greece will embark on a government policy of fiscal prudence in the 21st century. This means: "Spending less than you earn". Apologize to all debtors for defaulting and explain that Greece cannot accept any more bad debt and that if continued Greece would remain impoverished and effectively descend into a form of European slavery.
5. Ask the European union to keep good trade relations. If the European union are unwilling establish preferred trade relations with all the Mediterranean nations the were formerly part of the ancient historic Carthage. Also do the same with the BRICS nations. Drop all import and export tariffs for these countries.
6. ?
7. Profit
Footnotes:
Addressing president Obama's concerns: NATO existed before the Euro was implemented and can exist without it also. What is better? Defaulting on bad debt or accepting more debt to not pay it back anyway? Addressing European political concerns: Kicking the can down the road is just a convenience for short term political thinking.
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But whats actually seems to be most probable: Greece will accept more debt, remain impoverished and will therefore certainly never recover. It can't pay the debt back, can't grow economically with this black cloud over it and will systemically drag down Europe with it over the next couple of decades. As long as current politicians don't have to deal with the actual fallout of the bad debt and risk their re-election campaigns this will continue indefinitely.
But this is nothing compared to the USA: 17 Trillion and counting... Where will it stop? Probably about 30 to 40 trillion over the next decade or so.
At some point in the future the markets have to recognize the inevitable: What the hell were we all thinking?
We did this. We should man up. Should our children pay for OUR fiscal imprudence? We're all credit crazy assholes and its ALL OUR fault.
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Crazyguy
Germany is getting the worst end of it, they had to agree to the euro in order to get east Germany back, the British made this rule. Germany needs to thumb thier noses at the bits and dump the euro. -
prologos
fulltimestudent
a country or region has no power to devalue, and if it is not the beneficiary of a system of fiscal equalisation, then there is nothing to-- end of quote.comment:--"but can such a poor country like greece not lower its local wages, its pension benefits, fix it's taxation so its exports, its services become competitive on the world markets, so Money flows in so it could sustain it's debt?
Instead it chooses to be a parasite, sponging off the hard workers, savers. in the common market, currency.