What's up with Greece?
 

Half of Greece's dept is cut off and they're going for a referendum re austerity. I'm really no expert, but it looks like the EU has some serious problems to say the least.

http://blogs.wsj.com/source/2011/11/...europe-aghast/

The Greeks fucked it up.

:(

I honestly really seriously can't understand how a bunch of politicians can fuck up the entire Europe and even the entire World.

article yesterday in nytimes

more Porsches in that country than people declaring more than 50k of income a year WTF!!!

It will get massivily worse in Greece. They are now being asset stripped so the manufacturing jobs and supply chain jobs will go to China as the Greek infrastructure (electricity, water etc) get sold to the same banks that screwed them in the first place.

Probably add a permanent 1 to 2 million on the unemployment line.

Whatever you read about Greece is bullshit. Apparently the Greek problem was due to every Greek person evading a minimum of £3k per year in tax. The reality is that Goldman Sachs, the US Federal Reserve and JP Chase Morgan screwed them so now they are doing everything to make it look like the Greek people did it.

Neah, that's not completely true. They actually are very decent, you don't see too many luxurious cars around the streets. At least, i didn't the times i've been there. All of this is happening because of their politicians who stole tons of money and moved 'em in Switzerland. I don't think the population is at fault, but the politicians.

I lived in Greece for awhile and people openly brag about not paying taxes. Virtually no one pays what they are supposed to.

If i was a German citizen I would be pissed about all this

It's a big mess

I will concede that the world's financial institutions have certainly played their part in the current global financial crisis. Your absolute refusal to acknowledge that individual people have also played a part in the global financial crisis just baffles me.

eh Goldman Sachs helped out...
"How Goldman Sachs Helped Greece to Mask its True Debt"
http://www.spiegel.de/international/...676634,00.html
"Goldman Sachs helped the Greek government to mask the true extent of its deficit with the help of a derivatives deal that legally circumvented the EU Maastricht deficit rules. At some point the so-called cross currency swaps will mature, and swell the country's already bloated deficit."

People want government to solve problems in their lives. This is what happens. Every Greek should look in the mirror.

Havent you noticed how in every country world wide they always lay blame at the feet of the people? In America the Sub Prime mortage market etc. How about the people selling the mortgages?

trust me, they are pissed, especially when greek people start burning german flags and call them Nazis - for dumping billions into their non-functional society

lollllllll i guess you dont watch american news. supposedly every businessman in the country is to blame.

btw - 8 billion euro in pensions have been claimed over the last years for family members that have been died years ago

i am surely not blaming only individuals, but it has always been in the greek mentality to avoid paying taxes on one hand and gain as much as they could from the government on the other hand.

and i really like Greece, have been there, had greek neighbours and have greek friends. they agree. :2 cents:

The sellers and the buyers are getting blamed. The interesting thing is the government pushed the sellers into offering the loans. You don't hear about that often, do you?

At the end of the day, I, as an individual, have a responsibility to purchase things that only I can afford. Whether or not somebody else extends a ridiculous amount of credit to me has little bearing on my personal responsibility. If I cannot personally afford a $1 million loan, it is on me to not take the person offering the loan up on their offer. To deny that I have that personal responsibility is just absolutely ridiculous.

Greed was in everyone's eyes. People were buying homes that they couldn't afford because they thought they could flip them in two years for a higher profit. Too few people sat back and thought to themselves "gosh, people aren't going to be able to afford higher price houses like this forever. Maybe this isn't a good idea?" Banks were loaning people money because they simply didn't care. The government was encouraging banks to loan money because they wanted happy voters that were now able to buy nice fancy houses, even though they couldn't afford them. Individuals were pressuring the government to pressure banks so that they could live next to the Jones' while making a modest salary.

It's a huge cycle that everyone plays a part of. Everyone is responsible. The banks should pay, the government should pay, and so should the people that were irresponsible.

They shouldn't have been allowed to have EURO as their currency in the first place.. they didn't meet the basic requirements (debt rate etc etc)...

That's true, however it seems that Greece doesn't want to pay, take a look at their 1932 situation, they've pulled more or less the same type of stunt.

Hell yes the people played a part in it. In more ways than one.



Business 101. Supply and demand.

The people in the US Demand everything to be as cheap as it can. The banks supplied based on that demand.

Yes the banks knew what they were doing as did the people demanding.

Both are guilty.

Why exactly does Greece think the German people owe them anything? From what I can tell, Germany is one of the few countries that actually has their house in order.

why is greece broke?

why isn't germany broke?

yeah, well, nothing that cannot be even better...

but unemployment is at a record low, economy is growing.

still too much debt, but a little better than most other countries

but the greeks were for example pissed when germany told them that it cannot be that germans have to work till 67 while greeks retire at 55 or 60 and get higher pensions. while they obviously cant afford it.

Germany is Germany and will always be,that's mentality to work hard and pay their shit.

This thread needs a real Greek

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

So... the problem is that this government is stupid... the worst in Greek history. Now we pay pay pay pay and none told when we will be OK with our depit. Yes in past we did many "bad" things but we are "pushed" from politics who did the worst. So latest news...

this government had 157 members at his party and today has 152 and going to 151... so we are close at something that WE ALL GREEK PEOPLE WANT... ELECTIONS RIGHT NOW!!!! Many months we "fight" for that we want new government... we want ELECTIONS the most democratic solution... but this party want "eat" the last euro from us...

btw EUROPE sucks! All european governments are stupid and they did a mess with Euro. They thought that they will "beat" US DOLLAR and they did Europe like USA style, many countries in 1 government, 1 currency etc... so this plan fucked because we are not stats but countries !!!

btw Germany owns about 1,000,000,000,000,000$ from WW2.... in Greece....

The UK never.

But now we are landed with bailing out others, when we have our own BIG problems...

yes UK stayed out from Euro but stills in European Union... so will take a piece of the problem...

I wouldn't blame only politicans. People have government as they deserve, they are voting. I don't believe all the money are owned by few politicans. Most of it was eaten by citizens and military. Look what they do when they are going to lose some money, strikes everywhere. It was stupid to lend them money year ago, it changed absolutely nothing. I don't understand how can be EU so stupid to give them money. Greece is rich country. Why don't they sell some national assets to pay the debt?

and i thought the film had made a lot of cash too.

it started with the us banks

They cooked the government books.

Polls are showing that the referendum will be rejected.

Today all the whole Greek Military heads where replaced. Doesn't sound promising.

Also what would happen if the Greek people will vote NO against the EU rescue funding?

EU will collapse? What about the US, they will start printing more money to not go down?

This is seriously fucked up. Will this trigger hyper inflation were all the commodities will sky rocket in costs?

government didnt push any one into mortgages.Think about it,the gov cant get banks to loan at all now and they have given them all this money but magically before they controlled them. We wont talk about have top levels of the government are owned by goldman sachs alumni.

Its not necessarily Greece thats the problem.

Its that the European Union is a Giant ClusterFuck.

What I don't understand is where all the money is going to.

Someone or some peeps should to buy filthy rich. Every country has a crisis and money printing factories but where is the money actually going?

Greece spent the cash on huge social programs.

Anyway the question is not where the money is going to but where this new bailout money is coming from.

Basically we have no details on where this 1 trillion euros is coming from.

fuck that. The EU fucked it up from the start by pushing the euro down our throats when the people, to which they never listen to, were all against. And if the big boys want greece to play along, they will. No referendum will change that. NL had a referendum about the european contitution, majority of the people voted against, and a little while later it was still pushed down our throats. It doesnt fucking matter what the people say, politicians (=big companies and banks) will push their agendas through and keep on making this world more miserable for the people. Politics in a nutshell.

"Agenda" is the real keyword behind all this EU mess, the end justify the means, and there is this old objective not to create an European UNION but an European FEDERATION.

Those "irresponsible" countries will mess the EU economy so bad that the radical solution will be to create an European institution (some kind of EU minister of finance) that will take care of the economy of all EU countries. In the end of the day EU countries will lose their individual indentity and power. Welcome to the European Federation. :2 cents:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e0bd4e7a-8...#axzz1cYfJtjYM