Greece as a solution

[Pottel]

this is indeed the general discussion forum, so no harm is done here

[Waterline Man]

Hey VGONIS2002,
here in Ireland were probably 2 years ahead of where Greece is at the moment & if you think now is bad you aint seen nothing yet.Unemloyment is through the roof,salaries have been cut way back from where they were,taxes,pension levies etc have increased,emigration is at an all time high & the next knock on from that is marriage break ups,suicide increase & ill health from depression - in 1 word its "meltdown".All the public services have been cut,public hospitals now have less nurses, doctors etc but people cant afford to pay private health insurance so theres more people going to public hospitals so we have sick people on beds in corridors all over the country because theres no room for them.The banks are practically shut so people cant get credit & businesses are going bust every day.Some people in the building trade havent worked  in 3 - 4 years & anyone that was young enough has emigrated to either OZ or Canada at this stage.Anyone thats in their 50's are now retiring & getting out as the retirement age has now gone to 68 yrs of age  - it was 65 & the government is offering them packages to go now rather than wait.In the latest survey one homeloan/mortgage in nine is now 3 months in arrears & this figure is rising on a weekly rate.Some people are struggling to put food on the table for their kids, pay electricity,gas bills etc  - I thought that I only saw that in third world countries but its now in our own country.
I could go on about the reasons why & whos fault it is but believe me i have never seen anything like it before & I hope that I never will again but what I do know is that the main instigators are sunning themselves in far off shores while the  rest of us pick up the pieces.

RANT OVER

[vgonis]

Waterline Man, thank you for sharing this. Really do. Because the media and politicians here in Greece, use Ireland as an example of how an other country with the same problems, cut a better deal! Lies lies lies...What you are describing is a carbon copy of the Greek situation. 22% official unemployment, but in reality more than 30% (1.5 million people, and 1000 more every day!) Pension and Pay cuts nearly 50%, for the lucky ones that have a paying job. The basic salary is officially below 500 Euros, while all products and commodities are more expensive than ever! 3 new taxes every month for the last 6 months! Hospitals are pretty much the way you describe them, business as well. And yes, we know it'll get worse, but no hope it will get better! The thing that worries me more is that they have more ways to blackmail Greece into this hell, like a war with our friendly neighbors.

Please, if you could spare some time to be more analytical about the whos and whys, I would appreciate it. It is sad that Ireland goes through the same situation, and I guess Portugal and soon Spain and Belgium, maybe Italy too, might face the same shock and awe treatment from the EU headquarters and IMF.

Thank you for this post. And best of luck.

[Waterline Man]

The main problem / fault here was the building industry & how it was managed people lost the run of themselves buying & building property.We were building more units/ houses here than in  London who have 4 times more of a population which was crazy - we now have ghost estates like the wild west which have been left unfinished,houses half finished next to finished ones & full housing estates with unfinished roads etc because the developer has gone bust! If you ask me people were conned into thinking that the economy was booming when people in high places were painting a picture that didnt really exist.A lot of ordinary working class people over here have maybe 2 properties & an apartment in Spain or Turkey. This would have been unheard of 10-15 years ago but salaries went through the roof & people lost the run of themselves - the thing about it is that the government of the time didnt come out & say hey people this is a bubble & it will burst with serious consequences - we had a financial regulator whos employed by the government who sat back & watched all of this happen & didnt do a thing to stop it.We now have a new government who are trying to reverse all the wrongs of the last one but weve gone so far down the hole its going to take years to see a small bit of light.Everything has been cut, salaries,jobs ,services etc while taxes have gone up so its a lose lose situation for anyone thats staying here.Whats laughable is that the government will say that the unemployment figure has declined this month but whatthey wont tell you is that another 5,000 have emigrated & its not just single people that are going you also have families with grown kids who are going.
If you look at the building sector & see how many people are involved the knock on is staggering when it starts to crumble, you have the land owner selling which involves engineers,solicitors,estate agents,you have the builder,which involves solicitors,engineers,surveyors,workmen,blocklayers,plasterers,painters,kitchen fitters/carpenters etc etc, then you have the guy in the builders suppliers,carpet shop,the guy in the electrical store who supplies the appliances & so on................. its like a piece of string.Then without a lead in this goes wallop overnight which means that the people supplying them are also gone out of work ie the the shop on the corner near the building site that supplied the tea & coffee,sausage rolls, newspapers etc.
Ireland was in meltdown around 2005 but people in high places covered the cracks to make it look good & up until now they have gotten away with it - there are a few investigations going on at the moment where people may be brought before the courts but when you had a financial regulator looking at all of this going on & didnt do anything about it where is that going to go??? "Well your honour we were only doing what we thought was right & nobody in authority told us otherwise "

I could go on for the day but my blood pressure would only go through the roof

[Pottel]

Don't wanna cause you a heart attack WLman, but lately I heard more and more that you had indeed gone through disturbingly dire times but were now on the road to recovery?

[Waterline Man]

Don't wanna cause you a heart attack WLman, but lately I heard more and more that you had indeed gone through disturbingly dire times but were now on the road to recovery?

I dont know about being on the road to recovery Pottel - you see the problem is that we have been in recession since 2004 - 2005 but the people in power covered it over to make it look good from the outside ,they basically bluffed their way along until the s**t really hit the fan & there was no way back so we are so far down the hole we have a long way to go.
Exports are very good so thats probably whats being spun around the world to get foreign investment - half of the government around the world today for Paddys Day to try & drum up more business.Dont get me wrong people did go mad but they were led from the top - we had a situation a few years ago where the government had to guarantee the banks because they were broke - we were a day away from people going to the ATM & not being able to get their own money until the government stepped in.Its crazy stuff & some people cant see a short term solution - the ironic thing about it is that the banks are putting the squeeze on people for money on mortgages,loans,credit cards,overdrafts etc & they are the very people that bailed them out as its was our taxes & pension funds that was used to re capitalise them - crazy stuff

[vgonis]

...the ironic thing about it is that the banks are putting the squeeze on people for money on mortgages,loans,credit cards,overdrafts etc & they are the very people that bailed them out as its was our taxes & pension funds that was used to re capitalise them - crazy stuff

It is the same here. It looks like a carefully orchestrated plan, to me, but maybe I have seen too many conspiracy movies... But the fact that it has happened in several other countries, leaves little space for other assumptions.
Anyway, the biggest haircut of all, was enforced to the bonds that the pension funds were FORCED to invest, by the PASOK government back in the late 90ies. And they re-capitalize the banks, and yet they take no steps of securing the safe passage to better terms for loans and mortgages! People lose their jobs and then lose their houses and the money they have already paid! It is a rip off in broad daylight! I some times wonder if the people will ever wake up and stop voting for the kidnappers of their future. It must be a Stockholm syndrome situation.
I guess numbers can be cooked to provide a better statistic for the ears, but if the recovery is so slow that we will have to wait for 20 years(yes, that is the optimist side!) it is no good , because people will starve to death in less than a year!  

[vgonis]

Here is a quite revealing video for our Herman and german speaking friends!

[vgonis]

Also posted in Europe thread, but it really belongs here:

Some time ago during Easter in April 2012, I went for a visit at my mother's hometown some 140km outside Athens. It is really a blessed place, a micrography of Greek landscape,  combining the beauty of the sea, mountains and farmland. It produces olives, olive oil, wine, tobacco, grapes, almonds, lamb meat, peanuts, fish and many other things in smaller scale like herbs, cotton, wheat, corn and honey. All people there have a piece of land, small or big, depending on the heritage of their ancestors or the wise decision to buy farms from people leaving for the big cities. They also have a decent house  and a neighborhood feeling that is long gone from the cities. What they obviously lack is a proper education. That wouldn't be a problem, since Greeks are kind hearted, friendly and hospitable people, that usually make up for most of the luck of education. Unfortunately the only thing that can be substituted is the knowledge of what is good for them. And that is why they were fooled by the politicians for centuries and up to the last two elections. Because the ones that voted yet again in May and June 2012, for the two political parties that had formed the coalition since November 2011, were mainly them!!! They were lied upon, they were ripped with new heavy taxation, they received no promises for a better future, but still they went ahead and voted mainly for PASOK (the "socialist" party), the political party that have been ruining the country (together with the right party New Democracy) since 1974!
I tried to discuss with many of my relatives and friends the situation and actually understand why they vote for these parties and maybe convince them to vote for smaller parties that maybe were closer to them. I knew that they were voting for them and I didn't try to confront them straight ahead, so that I would not insult them for their previous choices. After all I thought that the new taxes and economical burdens would have brought them to their knees.
But alas! I was surprised to hear, more or less, the same reply:" You are right, by all means, and looks like you have studied the whole matter, but I am still voting for them, because they are the ones we know"  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You don't have anything to answer to that! It is peculiar yet true. It is human nature. Trouble is that their vote affects my life as well! And it has nothing to do with ideologies, it is just simple logic.

Now back to Athens. I had the chance to meet with many people during the summer, that open up with their opinion. I was stunned! So many people worring about what to vote, because no political party could express them , like myself. And on the other hand so many people daring to say that they will vote for the extremist right wing party. The so called radical left party got many votes (up from 8% and 4th placement  to 27% and 2nd !!!!!), but it was mainly protest vote, not ideological attachment at all. Many people I know, voted for New Democracy, without believing in it, but because they have certain problems (health, pensioners etc) that would lose their lives if the system collapsed without a government that IMF and the EU liked and supported.  Of course it is plain to see that the politicians lied once again and the EU and IMF cares only to profit from it and not help.
 What worries me most, is that since 1996 voting has ceased to be compulsory. It means that every lost vote comes from a person that can not find a fit representation. Now if only the 60-70% of the voters go to vote and from them only a 29% elects the first party (that together with the 3rd and 6th have joined forces, and formed the recent government) with a percentage more or less 48% but 167 out of 300 parliament members, you can see what kind of democracy we have. The 50% of the 70% is 35%. So we have the rest 65% disagreeing but unable to be expressed.   
I believe that this happens to most countries of the world, but people either suffer quietly, because they don't know better, or live in countries with stronger economies or ways to get by, so they don't feel the wave that is coming after Greece, Spain, Portugal.
I have written before that this is a war with other means. Just think what will happen if tomorrow you are left without a job. How long can you sustain? 

[vgonis]

How about that! The Greek government passed all the laws that actually bring Greeks to medieval times, and yet EU, ECB and IMF now have second thoughts about giving the next loan (it is not free money, mind you, the interest rate is a killer) thus creating a new world wide wave of disbelief  for Greece, that not only ruins every chance Greece has to recover by attracting new investments, but also make all values in Greece drop, in a free fall.
 It greatly reminds me of old westerns or gangster movies, where the mob chief went to buy the business from the rightful owners, and instead of reaching an agreement, he just appraised the business and had the thugs convince the victim. A dollar is good enough! And you get to live, too!
This trail of money have to end somewhere. The politicians of Europe have to built in different foundations, than debt. And I am not just saying because I am Greek and in debt, I am saying because this is a downward spiral, actually a war with many victims, that will not end in Greece, just stolling for the rest of the world, in Greece. If we tolerate this...

Check this little video!

[vgonis]

And for the patient ones (unfortunately in Spanish with Greek subtitles) this full documentary about the debt and the results in Argentina.


http://www.videoman.gr/15905

[vgonis]

http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debitismus
from wikipedia about depitism. Send to me by Justme some time ago. This is the part that sets the tone:


"To pay for the taxes and fees set by the rulers must also citizens receive private debts. The time difference between the (early) tax deadline of the citizen and the (late) stage of his income explains and justifies Paul C. Martin for the collection of interest . This starts a spiral of debt that only by periodic economic crises and related revolutions can be interrupted."

The fact that Greece has defaulted in everything but name, can easily be seen by the stance the state has towards the civilians. The state owes more than 6,5 Billion Euros as tax refunds, unpaid dues for orders from the private sector and so on. Still, they demand taxes and you pay a penalty for not paying them in time, but they are not oblidged to pay the money they own. What makes it more tragical, is the fact that they don't accept any equalization for the money they own with the taxes! And when they get the money they just throw them to the endless pit of foreign debt.  They run the economy dry!