The situation in Greece

[Anian]

On a more serious note, after your post, yeah, a clean cut would be best if the things are wrong, but if the situation is fixable, a clean cut would be a bad move.

But that's the point the situations are far from good, everything is so interconnected it's probably impossible to fix something and not do everything again - I mean, look at what the recent crash in USA provoked around the world, the whole functionality of modern world has rotted down to the basics along with human values, morals.
A guy drops on the street and nobody comes to help him for more then two hours, but on the other hand there's like a video where a cat is trying to revive another kitten, trying to help...sad.

Are you gonna change a politician or party at power? You really think somebody far better is going to come along?

...this is not going to make sense in the morning, I can tell already. 

[bicilotti]

A small explanation of what's happened. [...]

I usually try to stay far away from topics like these, but since we have two worthy greeks here, I'd like to ask a question.

Some commentators here in italy blame the IMF and the bloody capitalits for the Greek crisis, some other say that there's no free meal and that the greeks should only blame themselves.

E.g, they say that Greece recognize some 600 job categories to be eligible for early retirement (50/55 years), like (rightfully) mine workers and... radio and television anchormen (bacterial hazard), hairdresser (chemical hazard), musicians playing wind instruments, etc. This apply to more or less 15% of the workforce.

To that they add some other stuff, like widespread use of bonus for public workers arriving on time, state money being awarded to childless daughters of public workers and so on.

But what matters to me is the first point. Is this tuth or a canard?

[Nikolas]

IMO

it's a combination of all things.

1. Yes, we Greeks are slucks. All of us, except me and passer-by of course! ... oh, ok Dualnames as well!:D We also enjoy blaming everyone else except ourselves (as it apparent from my post). In all truth, despite the humourus nature of this, it is actually true! There are A LOT of people in the public sector who simply do not go to work and still get paid. There A LOT of people who do not pay taxes normally and evade paying A LOT of money. The reason is that they KNOW the money won't do any good, since everything still is disorganized.

All of this has lead to a simple situation where everyone is blaming everyone else.

At the same time unions (many, many of them in Greece), have been claiming for the odd 40something continuous 'rights' for their professions. Doctors, lawyers, mechanics (wife's an architect... remember?), etc...

So you get:
a. Many RICH people who don't pay taxes
b. Many public workes who don't work effectively
c. Many professions with special 'rights'.

All this has lead to muh tension over the last few years.

2. At the same time, if you take into account that the austerity measures are basically reducing a family income by 20-30% annually you can understand that it would be impossible to cope. I mean, honestly, the loss of wages, and everything in between has already caused havoc and pretty soon we will have more jobs losts and stores closed than ever! Economy will halt! There's no reason to buy clothes or go out if you can't fucking afford to live...

What's more aggrevating, although evident why, is that the government measurers are touching only those they can: Public sector workers and pensioners. The idea is that the government is paying them so stopping payments is the easiest thing to do. They left the private workers untouched! And while this would be bare stealing, from a social point of view, it would be better than taking them money from pensioers who not only have spend their entire life programming those last years, but also are unable, legally, to work further and do a bit more to cope with the situation.

There already were measures which made people worry. The rise of VAT from 19% to 21%. Various other taxes, the gas tax, and receipts issues. These were in the process of normal measures that people HAD accepted. But IMF fucked things up in this sense COMPLETELY!

____________________

The general consencous over here, at least from my part and the close family is that there are people who stole half Greece, and were part of the government. That there are specific people and situation that broughts us to this. That there are people to blame! But nobody's doing it. And this is one of the things that aggrevated people the most I think.

I mean, you want wage cut backs? Cut the wages to the government and all people involved in the parliament! REALLY cut them, not just withdow a few hundred euros, when they are getting tons of money from various bonuses (all untaxed of course, since they are bonus).

Go out there are literally attack all the scum doctors in central Athens and FORCE them to pay tax. They might be doing away with 100,000 euros per month (literally and I'm being honest here). Make them pay the rightfully 45,000 per month!

This could calm things down.

____________________

In the end? Who's to blame? Everyone I guess. From me (not sure why, but what the heck), to all Greek workers public or not, to the government, to Mercel and her continuous dennial for help at first (due to micropolitical reasons in Germany, since the elections are on Sunday), to the IMF, to... everyone.

The one thing that NOONE is discussing is what to do. How to live. What to change. Current model is NOT working, and this is apparent. But are we going to change things for the better, or just complaint (and eventually kill innocent people?)

[bicilotti]

What's more aggrevating, although evident why, is that the government measurers are touching only those they can: Public sector workers and pensioners. The idea is that the government is paying them so stopping payments is the easiest thing to do. They left the private workers untouched!

I partially disagree with this. Checking the austerity measure for public workers I found:

• public Sector limit introduced of 1000 Euros to bi-annual bonus, abolished entirely for those earning over 3,000 Euros a month.
  
• cuts of 8% on public sector allowances and 3% pay cut for DEKO (public sector utilities) pay cheques.
  
• freeze on increases in public sector wages for three years.
  
  while those employed in privately own firms will get:
  
  
• changes to the laws governing lay-offs and overtime pay.
  
• extraordinary taxes on company profits.
  
  If I read this correctly, it basically means that all public workers will get something like 20% of their wages cut while keeping their job, while a significant portion of private workers will be "simply" fired. If those are the measures (as I said, I just made a quick google search and I may be wrong), I'd rather choose to be a civil servant.
  
  

  
  In the end? Who's to blame? Everyone I guess. From me [...] to Merkel and her continuous denial for help at first (due to micropolitical reasons in Germany, since the elections are on Sunday), [...].
  

  
  I think Angela Merkel found herself in a sticky situation and cannot really be blamed that much. As a german newspaper wrote: “The Greeks go onto the streets to protest against the increase of the pension age from 61 to 63. Does that mean that the Germans should in future extend the working age from 67 to 69, so that the Greeks can enjoy their retirement?”
  I know it's a quite populist statement, but... well, the left part of my brain agrees with it.
  
  
  
  I've played the perverse person enough . I hope Greece and greeks will quickly find the way out of this mess, regaining control of their country as soon as possible!
  
  bicilotti over and out

[Nikolas]

Yes, but what you might not have considered is that public sector workers are IMMUNE to being fired! They simply CANNOT be fired. So less money is less money and that's the only way for the government to get it 'easily' enough.

The uproar for me about the public sector is exactly that 50% of them (number is almost random) simply do NOT work. While the private sector worker is depending on their actions to not be laid off.

You need to understand that being a civil servant means security for the rest of your life and many rights (for example you actually get almost 2 years leave (I think) when giving birth (talking about females here). Loosing those rights is extremely hard and, in all honesty, wages  are rather low, in comparison to real life. Plus you CAN'T (in general) work outside if you are a civil worker.

[WHAM]

@ Tuomas: The poll was on the website www.iltasanomat.fi, but I can't find it there anymore. They have a the poll up usually for a day or two before they switch for a new poll (Today the poll is about voting a certain person into the government or not...)

Sorry, I was too slow.

They did have a big headline on the website, I think two days ago, about how many of their readers had already voted against the loan in their poll.

EDIT: Stop the press, I found the link: http://www.iltasanomat.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/uutinen.asp?id=2125665
Final tally of people against the loan was about 180 000, which was about 95% of voters.

[Tuomas]

I love it how they make a story out of quotes from average Joes talking about school lunches and whatnot

I was just watching telly now, and it seemed, that the left side is quite against the loan, while the right side is more willing. The amount of voters on the side would suggest otherwise though, centre-right being the leading parties here. Though I do understand, that people who go around internet reading news sources such as Iltasanomat, which is a sensationalist daily tabloid, are most probably those, who actually do not vote, but love to swear anonymously over the internet. Also, the lack of information at this point is really a good reason for these results, I'd be surprised if your inbred nation would be willing to pay anything before the matter had been discussed.

[WHAM]

Maybe I'm misinformed then, but from what I've gathered from Finnish and global media, I think that Greece shouldn't just get an "out of trouble free" -card in the form of big loans (which they will probably not be able to pay back, anyway). I'm not exactly a millionaire, so why should the money that I, amongst other taxpayers, will eventually have to pay up to our government, be thrown in a well (in a manner of speaking)?

I know! It's probably a very complicated matter, and Greece has probably had its reasons, but all-in-all I think its Greece's problem and just like all other nations, they should solve it themselves, as they have brought it upon themselves (grey economy at 25-40% of economy, for example).

[InCreator]

The wonders of capitalism.

[Tuomas]

Well basically the monetary union is a really complex thingamabob. Greece is accepted as a partner and has the same currency as we do, and the rate of the currency compared to $ is the same as everywhere within the union. The problem here is just that the effect on currency swifting affects on the whole euro-economy while the member states have no control over each other. Same does not apply to national monetary solutions like Sweden, where while â,¬ drops, they should buy it and once it goes up, change it back to dom kronor. The whole issue with Greece affects the creditability of the euro-economy and therefore all of us. Once they were accepted in there they paid the price we all did to hold up the currency. Paying Greece off the market would actually cost a lot more than the package planned, so they have to be fit into a mold that'll bring them up to the level required.

Nevertheless such a system would be fatal should we use it on say, Ireland or Spain. At the moment the goal should be to get Greece back on its feet and then set up rules to which all members must answer. It's a huge hole in the whole scheme, any asshole could have done the same they've now done, and everyone has to pay. But at this point, there's no going back, if we'd do that, we'd all go corrupt. As I've said, it costs so much to disassemble the system, that it's not worth it. And that's basically what keeps the whole system together, and the background forces keep it up and high on the market.

The loose-brained politics of the Greece government is not the only thing that should be put into place. If we're going to have a monetary union, where everyone's dependent on everyone else, but have no say on anyone's internal actions there should be boundaries put to the limits which the private providers and associates have to be ready to follow. In practice an example would be interest limits and limits regarding the amount of money spent and gained. Which is really contradictory to the original goal of the union. Basically we have a crust on the pie, but someone's messing up the berries inside, and the crust can't hold them together. And once the pie gets hot, as it did, the crusts going to expand leaving a lot of room for the pies to mess around. Lucky we still have the biggest pie on the windowsill, but if the balance stirs too much, it'll come apart. we're just protecting ourselves.

The Finnish rightwingers are trying to quickly save the situation we have now on their half while the lefties are trying to dig deeper and prevent such things from happening later on. What ever they decide, there's really no way anyone could make the banks that gave the loans give the money back. No instance has resources to reply to such requests, and even if they had, there's no way they'd give up the profit just for the sake of it. At the moment, it's basically the euro paying back the banks. That's because the one idiot in the team screwed up.