I’ve just watched a BBC3 programme ‘Greece bust and broken’. We all know its bad there but to see first hand exactly how bad is shocking. People have to queue to attend special free clinics. Ordinary people have no access to the health system unless they pay, all medicines have to be paid for and no one has the money to pay. Charities are distributing free food and other essentials. Over 50% of young people are unemployed. Public services are breaking down; people are talking about revolution and an end to austerity. In one day the whole of the Athens public housing department was closed, 500 people with families lost their jobs with no hope of finding other work.. The social housing stock is being given back to the banks leaving one million already poor families homeless. Hard to believe this is happening in Europe.
I do wonder why we (the rest of Europe) are demanding the debt is repaid. I wonder why, in return for loans Greece can’t afford, we are demanding public spending cuts that destroy housing, health and education. When underdeveloped countries were in that position public pressure eventually made the banks write off the loans, so why does Greece have to drive its people into destitution to satisfy the banks?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01kbz15
Maybe they should do what they did in Iceland……………..say no to the banks, spend the money on the people and arrest the corrupt.
In fact maybe we should all do what they did in Iceland. I quite like this report on the Iceland situation.
I wish I had a magic wand...
ReplyDeletelol... yeah me too.............I wish there were a way to restore justice to the world.
ReplyDeleteThe cause of what is happening is the fact that after WW II, the european countries did not pay for any kind of military
ReplyDeletethey went wild with 100% social programs, and that is the cause of europe's problems today
nope................not true at all
ReplyDeleteI don't get it when there have been successful programs in the past, people just seem to ignore or forget history.
ReplyDeleteThe Marshall Plan for example. Or even to an extent, the Lend Lease Act.
http://europeanhistory.about.com/od/coldwar/p/prmarshallplan.htm
look at what the govt of each european country spends on govt controlled health care, govt controlled social services, union benefits and wages and at what age people can retire on full pension just after 20 years...........
ReplyDeleteplus some of the countries have laws that prevent business owners from firing workers..........
I don't get it either, I can't believe there is no alternative to this so called austerity, I don't think this is the time to point the finger and lay blame, the causes are many and varied, none of which really matter now. All that mattes is that something is done to help, stop people going hungry, stop people becoming homeless, make sure the health care system works and give back some sort of future to them. Its awful, unbelievable, to see this sort of poverty in Europe
ReplyDeletethanks for your reply
ReplyDeleteI did as you said and looked at the amounts Governments are spending, these figures were correct in 2011 and as far as I can see the most stable countries, those with the most successful economies and best standards of living, are also the countries whose governments spend the highest % of GDP . ie Belgium, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden. The age of retirement in Europe varies slightly from country to country but all fall somewhere between age 60 and age 65, except the UK and our retirement age is now 67. These are the ages at which people can claim their national state pension; of course if a person has a private pension plan they can retire when ever that pension plan pays out but they don’t get their state pension until retirement age. This sort of information can be tossed around forever but I think its more important to figure out a way to end this so called austerity and the suffering it causes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending
Government spending as % of GDP
Austria 42.9%
Belgium 50%
Croatia 40.7%
Denmark 51.8%
Finland 43.2%
France 44.6%
Germany 40.6%
Greece 35.1%
Iceland 57.8%
Italy 43.1%
Lithuania 37.4%
Luxembourg 37.2%
Netherlands 39.5
Norway 42.1%
Poland 43.3%
Portugal 37.7%
Romania 37.6%
Spain 41.1%
Sweden 47.9%
UK 38.9%
also, as far as i am aware there are no laws preventing a worker being dismissed, only laws preventing unfair dismissal
when federal govt spending exceeds more than 20% of GDP, it takes away from the private sector to pay for a public sector that produces nothing........
ReplyDeletethats an opinion, but its not a universally agreed fact, and the experience of Sweden, Iceland etc doesn't seem to validate that opinion, and .............as I said.............finding a way to elevate the suffering in Greece is far more important that throwing out random figures and opinions and pointing the finger of blame
ReplyDeleteit is easy, get rid of the public union pensions, and the govt employee pay scale which is twice of that than in the private sector
ReplyDeleteI don't know what you mean by 'public union pensions' and I don't know what country you live in but I work for the public sector in the UK and I assure you, I and the vast majority of public sector employees are low paid. Most public sector employees are road sweepers, school dinner ladies, roadside waste collectors, lollipop ladies, carers for the elderly, home helps, classroom assistants etc etc and compared to the private sector we are low paid. The well paid public sector employees are the top officials of all the different departments or people like head teachers etc. and they are only a fraction of the total number of public sector employees
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/world/europe/italy-tackles-labor-laws-that-divide-young-and-old.html?pagewanted=all
ReplyDeletethis is where I get some of My information regarding public sector pay versus private sector pay
her dad retired at age 42 with full pension while contributing nothing to it...........
ReplyDeleteOk I've just skimmed that and from what I see the father was given some sort of redundancy package from the rail company because the rail company was cutting its staff numbers. That's not the same as a state pension, a redundancy package is paid out by the company to employees as compensation for being made redundant.
ReplyDeleteAnyway...............like I said..............I don't know where you are but I'm here in the UK, its 2.15 and I have to go to my very lucrative public service job in the morning so guess I better get to bed,...........
they chose the Communist way a long time ago and unfortunatly never found their way back--but if you make bills and cannot pay them back is it fair to excpect other people to pay for them no I don't think so--
ReplyDeleteit is their problem and they need to solve it but they won't still in the excuse mode--they have a very over bloated social system etc,
and blaming the rest of us for their problems is not the way to go--
There are perhaps many methods, technically speaking, on the economic level to make things better, but the root of the problem is in our hearts, in human nature. What do we put first?
ReplyDeleteThe current system is a card castle and the table is getting shaky. There may be hard times ahead for all. Not having stuff you can't pay for is logical and realistic in my opinion. If we put the welfare of all as what's important, we can surely find a way.
(I think you meant alleviate, not elevate.)
What the public sector produces:
ReplyDelete-Schools and educated citizens
-Roads, bridges, water & sewage systems
-Protection from fire
-Police and internal security
-Healthy children and adults
-Care for the aged and disabled
-Inspection of factories and food processing plants (so we don't end up like China with poison in our food and toys)
-Regulation and inspection of mining and drilling facilities
-Regulation and registration of autos and drivers
-Licensing of various professions
-Inspection of building sites
I could really go on and on, but to say the public sector produces nothing is untrue.
JJa, it's a mess isn't it? We must be honest though, while the greek people seem to have developed a reputation for tax avoidance it tends to be (mostly) the higher paid that manage that. Ever since the overthrow of the Generals Greece has operated mostly in the same way though. When money runs short they devalue the drachma. Prices inevitably rise but, they can pay the bills again.
ReplyDeleteThen they joined the EU and that looked great (if you were a greek politician). Gifts of money from Brussels (not loans), new public buildings, new roads and hospitals.............Then they joined the eurozone. Now they can't devalue and they're stuck in a spiral of debt with no way out. Yes, the greek government lied about their finances to gain access to the eurozone. And Brussels knew they were lying but let them in anyway.
But enough about the past, now there's the present. The money being offered in loans isn't (in general) going to the greek people, it's going to greek banks who are using it to repay loans to german/french/UK banks. The money goes in a big circle except, the greeks pay for it while 'we' get it.
Playing by their own rules no eurozone Country can 'bail out' another one. That's why the money is administered by the IMF. In this way not only eurozone Countries contribute but also non-eurozone Countries such as the UK. Not only does the money come back to the contributors but, we also get to collect interest on the loans. For every billion the UK puts into the fund (which travels its circular route through Greece and back to the UK) we get an additional £70 million in interest.
There is this too. Countries such as Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal drag down the value of the euro from where it would normally float as an international medium of exchange. This means that german goods sell at a much lower price abroad and encourages the german economy. Now do you see how it's working? Germany lent the money to Greece so that they'd buy BMW's and keep the german companies and their workers in jobs. (I'm not picking on Germany by the way, the UK and France did this too).
I can't see Greece's way forward. Since Lucas Papademos (ex-vice president of the European Central Bank) was appointed as greek Prime Minister by Brussels it didn't much matter who they elected as President. They were controlled by Brussels. Now that Lucas Papademos has stepped down everything is in a state of flux. Under the eurozone rules (unless I'm very much mistaken) no Country may unilaterally withdraw from the eurozone. All Countries must agree that they can leave. It'll take an awful lot of public pressure for that to happen.
An interesting thoughFrank but, not really practical in this situation.
ReplyDeleteOne must remember that the Marshal Plan required that most of the money must be spent on the purchase of materials and food from the US. 80% of the money went to finance US companies. Part of the agreement was also that the US could dictate which type of manufacturing would be allowed in each Country. Europe couldn't build anything that might compete with the US in international markets.
The Lease Lend Act was purely for military equipment during the war. It had to be repaid in gold and it was only in 2007 that it was fully repaid. It's not manufactured equipment (military or otherwise) that Greece needs. Their only hope (in my opinion) is for them to get out of the euro, accept that prices will rise as they devalue and just hope that things recover soon.
With a devalued drachma holidays (one of Greece's principal sources of income) will be incredibly cheap and people will flock there. I'd hope so anyway, I like Greece.
:-) well spotted, of course you are right, ....as I said, it was getting pretty late last night I was obviously past my best.
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you, I totally agree that putting the welfare of all is what is important. And by welfare I mean the well being of the people not pumping money into the banks.
That seems a bit harsh, the people who created the debt are not the ordinary people who are suffering. Those who are responsible are the corrupt officials & politicians, the rich who thought ( think) tax evasion is a national sport and the banks who were far too eager to lone Greece money it obviously couldn't afford. The whole concept of a 'bailout' is a misconception because none of the money goes to help the ordinary Greek people, none of it finds its way into schools of hospitals or any of the neglected public services, it goes to pay off debts to the banks, the same banks who created the problems in the first place. Which is why I said in the beginning that maybe we should all follow the example if Iceland and say no to the banks......Iceland's. economy seems to be thriving since they stood up to the banks. When you see the suffering in Greece its cruel to just say they are refusing to solve their own problems and are making excuses. They are not making excuses, what they are saying is true, the ordinary people have been left to live in squalor with out the most basic amenities and its not the fault of the ordinary people.
ReplyDeletethanks Bernard, you seem to have a much better grip on the situation than I do, but I totally agree with you about the money going round in circles. It goes from the rich European banks, it bypasses ordinary Greek people and Greek public services, and heads right back into the rich banks. And this is the so-called 'bailout' that the Greek people are being driven into destitution for.
ReplyDeleteJa, we devalue our currency (quantative easing) as does the US and virtually every Country on Earth. That's why we have inflation, it reflects the drop in the value of our money. We, (the UK) regularly spend more than we collect in taxes as do other Countries. But, while they're trapped in the euro, the greeks can't devalue.
ReplyDeleteIt's a spiral of debt from which they can't escape. Putting people out of work and failing to be able to pay for pensions and social services both drops tax income even more and puts more people out of work who were dependent on citizens spending their money.