GoonSquad
Gadfly or Fly Food?
Joined: May 12, 2007
Age: 43
Posts: 3592
Location: International House of Paincakes...
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 Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 1:13 am Post subject: Athens is burning... |
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Click!
| Quote: | Greece's parliament approved a deeply unpopular austerity bill Monday to secure a second EU/IMF bailout and avoid national bankruptcy, as buildings burned across central Athens and violence spread around the country.
Cinemas, cafes, shops and banks were set ablaze in central Athens and black-masked protesters fought riot police outside parliament before lawmakers voted on the package that demands deep pay, pension and job cuts -- the price of a 130 billion euro ($172 billion) bailout needed to keep the country afloat.
State television reported the violence spread to the tourist islands of Corfu and Crete, the northern city of Thessaloniki and towns in central Greece. Police said 150 shops were looted in the capital and 34 buildings set ablaze.
Altogether 199 of the 300 lawmakers backed the bill, but 43 deputies from the two parties in the government of Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, the socialists and conservatives, rebelled by voting against It. They were immediately expelled by their parties.
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The rebellion and street violence foreshadowed the problems the Greek government faces in implementing the cuts, which include a 22 percent reduction in the minimum wage -- a package critics say condemns the economy to an ever-deeper downward spiral.
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Many Greeks believe their living standards are collapsing already and the new measures will deepen their misery.
"Enough is enough!" said 89-year-old Manolis Glezos, one of Greece's most famous leftists and a national hero. "They have no idea what an uprising by the Greek people means. And the Greek people, regardless of ideology, have risen."
Glezos is a national hero for sneaking up the Acropolis at night in 1941 and tearing down a Nazi flag from under the noses of the German occupiers, raising the morale of Athens residents. |
I don't know what the answer to this is, but it seems obscenely unfair to try and fix this problem at the expense of the Greek working class...
After all, they did not crash the world economy...
_________________
If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.~Marcus Aurelius |
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snapcap
Phoenix
Joined: Oct 13, 2011
Age: 31
Posts: 2328
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| Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 1:24 am Post subject: |
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Of course they didn't, but they will pay, because the game is rigged. Athens shouldn't be burning, bankers should be, where ever they hide. This would happen if the people were more organized, but they are not.
Last edited by snapcap on Mon Feb 13, 2012 2:07 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Nexus
Seems legit...
Joined: Aug 15, 2006
Posts: 1111
Location: On I2
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| Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 1:51 am Post subject: |
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Bets on Greece erupting into a full blown civil war soon?
_________________
"Have a nice apocalypse" - Southland Tales |
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auntblabby
Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief
Joined: Feb 13, 2010
Posts: 18162
Location: the island of loveable toy humans
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| Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 6:41 am Post subject: |
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| it can happen here also. |
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CosTransform
Snowy Owl
Joined: Mar 22, 2010
Posts: 161
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| Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 8:52 am Post subject: |
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Where lies "here" ? 
Anyway.. real capital is people that produce something or offer services. Sacking people doesn't produce more. So the whole scheme seems counterproductive and only makes sense from a bean counter perspective. |
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PlatedDrake
Argentum Draconis
Joined: Aug 26, 2009
Age: 32
Posts: 1362
Location: Piedmont Region, NC, USA
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| Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 12:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Rich getting richer, poor getting poorer . . . geez, and they think people are NOT going to revolt against that? A thick wad of money is little protection against the business end of violence and people with little to lose. But, hey, no one's going to miss the greedy and corrupt of the world. |
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DC
Phoenix
Joined: Aug 16, 2011
Posts: 1477
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| Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 12:17 pm Post subject: |
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| PlatedDrake wrote: | | Rich getting richer, poor getting poorer . . . geez, and they think people are NOT going to revolt against that? A thick wad of money is little protection against the business end of violence and people with little to lose. But, hey, no one's going to miss the greedy and corrupt of the world. |
That is ok, the poor can feed their children rats.
Try the video on this page:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_9694000/9694094.stm
And before we get anyone complaining about lefty BBC bias, this is the BBC reporting that under obama 3 million more poor people have plunged into extreme poverty. |
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GoonSquad
Gadfly or Fly Food?
Joined: May 12, 2007
Age: 43
Posts: 3592
Location: International House of Paincakes...
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| Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 1:29 pm Post subject: |
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^^^ That's not a revelation.
I literally live in the backyard of the richest, most power people in the world and we have "weekend snacks" programs for children here because otherwise many children would have no food at home.
It's really disgusting.
_________________
If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.~Marcus Aurelius |
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ruveyn
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 22, 2008
Age: 76
Posts: 29311
Location: New Jersey
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| Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 1:49 pm Post subject: Re: Athens is burning... |
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| GoonSquad wrote: |
I don't know what the answer to this is, but it seems obscenely unfair to try and fix this problem at the expense of the Greek working class...
After all, they did not crash the world economy... |
Unfortunately the means for reclaiming what are probably ill gotten goods simply don't exist. So what you will have is a riot and when the dust settles and the fires are put out things will be worse than they were before.
Ill fares the land to hasting ills a prey, when wealth accumulates and men decay.....
ruveyn |
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CosTransform
Snowy Owl
Joined: Mar 22, 2010
Posts: 161
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| Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 9:36 pm Post subject: |
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Most likely lost is lost. BUT..
One can build a system of meritocracy and make sure gains goes to the public. How that should be accomplished is a harder problem. |
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Inventor
Phoenix
Joined: Feb 16, 2007
Posts: 5111
Location: New Orleans
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| Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 1:14 am Post subject: |
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The Greeks were not buying CDS, they were selling bonds, and fools bought them.
They played the Euro like small towns play Walmart, it was a stream of cash to fund pensions, and no longer any need to serve the town.
Several hundred billion and unemployment rose? Who thought that Greece could borrow forever.
The Euro is a new thing, and Greece, Spain, Portugal, never had an economy. But they borrowed a half Trillion? Even writing down the bonds 70%, they can still not make payments, Cutting government spending 20%, they cannot make payments.
Economically they are declining, GDP down 6%, another six, they rank with Nigeria. Another problem is it is mostly German banks that hold the bonds. That is going to pull down the economic engine of Europe. Less Capital, and much less loan funded exports. That produces less winter vacations, and the sunny south drops more.
Become more productive, or accept a lower standard of living. There are limits to being productive.
Japan dropped 3% last quarter, and they have had time to recover from the earthquake. Lower sales in Europe and America. China is the last bubble.
Americans face less jobs and declining wages, lower real estate prices, and they have stopped talking about housing rebounding. We are five years into a two year recovery, then pushed to four, then ten, then they shut up, decades. The dollar has been devalued, and inflation is rising.
The stock market is the new bubble, but most of it is pension plans, and the war babies have started to retire, they will be drawing out of the market, and adding nothing. They will also be drawing Social Security, and the government that does not pay does not survive the next election.
So what do you do when there is no solution? |
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johansen
Deinonychus
Joined: May 16, 2011
Age: 24
Posts: 321
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| Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 6:11 am Post subject: |
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| Inventor wrote: | They played the Euro like small towns play Walmart [...]
So what do you do when there is no solution? |
That is a very good analogy, thank you.
and what do you do when there is no solution? simple.
grab a bottle, fill it with gasoline, stuff a rag in the top, light it, throw it.
-Repeat until you are as broke as your country is |
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Jeffrey228
Snowy Owl
Joined: Apr 24, 2011
Posts: 152
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| Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 7:34 am Post subject: Re: Athens is burning... |
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| GoonSquad wrote: | Click!
| Quote: | Greece's parliament approved a deeply unpopular austerity bill Monday to secure a second EU/IMF bailout and avoid national bankruptcy, as buildings burned across central Athens and violence spread around the country.
Cinemas, cafes, shops and banks were set ablaze in central Athens and black-masked protesters fought riot police outside parliament before lawmakers voted on the package that demands deep pay, pension and job cuts -- the price of a 130 billion euro ($172 billion) bailout needed to keep the country afloat.
State television reported the violence spread to the tourist islands of Corfu and Crete, the northern city of Thessaloniki and towns in central Greece. Police said 150 shops were looted in the capital and 34 buildings set ablaze.
Altogether 199 of the 300 lawmakers backed the bill, but 43 deputies from the two parties in the government of Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, the socialists and conservatives, rebelled by voting against It. They were immediately expelled by their parties.
...
The rebellion and street violence foreshadowed the problems the Greek government faces in implementing the cuts, which include a 22 percent reduction in the minimum wage -- a package critics say condemns the economy to an ever-deeper downward spiral.
...
Many Greeks believe their living standards are collapsing already and the new measures will deepen their misery.
"Enough is enough!" said 89-year-old Manolis Glezos, one of Greece's most famous leftists and a national hero. "They have no idea what an uprising by the Greek people means. And the Greek people, regardless of ideology, have risen."
Glezos is a national hero for sneaking up the Acropolis at night in 1941 and tearing down a Nazi flag from under the noses of the German occupiers, raising the morale of Athens residents. |
I don't know what the answer to this is, but it seems obscenely unfair to try and fix this problem at the expense of the Greek working class...
After all, they did not crash the world economy... |
They would blame the United States for that one, and with Republicans wanting to win the Presidency, I think that might even be more worse than what we are seeing now, since they were the ones that caused the Economy to go Belly up, Bush and those of Tea Party and hard Conservertives that did this. |
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Inventor
Phoenix
Joined: Feb 16, 2007
Posts: 5111
Location: New Orleans
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| Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 1:38 pm Post subject: |
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I disagree, our traditional economy was based on genocide and slavery.
Trying to go with only genocide after the 1860s lead to long recessions, panics, and fifty years of unstable economy, as no one had any idea how to run it. The new business was The Spanish American War, which regretfully ended.
Those who promoted industry, finance, mass employment, were called Robber Barons, and Anti Trust looted them just as Congress had looted the south fifty years before, they have wealth, they are evil.
Europe had depended on a form of ritual mutual genocide, called war, and when Americans got involved they did not understand, and rapidly brought WWI to an end, before it had reduced surplus population.
No one invaded, bombed, occupied Germany, their industry was intact, but the Great Depression came from lack of markets, excess production and it took another war to even start the rebuilding process,
Of the dead, only one in ten was in uniform.
50 million was maybe a third of the population, which did wonders for the post war economy.
America has tried to be the world arms supplier, has sponsored wars in Korea, Viet Nam, then stumbled into Panama, Granada, and never could get a wider war going. Russia was our fake war, which kept the war machine building for events that never happened, nor could happen.
The main problem with the world economy is survivors, who produced the war babies, and funded the real estate bubble. It happened everywhere.
I was a bit older, in Third Grade we had three class rooms, a year later it was ten, and in a few more, twenty. We were barly surving the baby bust of the depression and WWII, then the economy was ruined by people who did not understand, we kill people so there are less of them.
America alone produced 45 million war babies. The world population that had been reduced to a workable five billion, has become eight in less than a generation. The war babies wanted bigger houses, cars, SUVs, coke, and to pay for it, birth control and abortion reduced the next generation by 40-100 million. Now this baby bust generation, and the even worse current baby bust, gets to support us for the next twenty to thirty years.
The WWII generation spawned seven workers to pay for their retirement, the war babies three, and the next generation cannot afford children, or the rent.
The natural order of things, die at sixty and get out of the way, has been extended twenty-five years. When Social Security started, it was very little, and most were expected to die before 65. Even if you lived you were expected to pay for your medical care out of your $17 a month.
This leaves three people working fast food, walmart, to pay for the next 25 years of one retired person, who's medical cost alone are expected to be more than the total income of the three.
In Japan, where people live to be 90, a third of the population is retiring. They each have two workers to support them. Since the workers cannot afford children, the population will drop by a third in 30 years. Same in America, but the plan is bring in more illegal immigrants, to keep wages down.
This is worldwide, and most of the world, India, South America, Africa, did not have a WWII population reduction. 75 million in Nigeria, half under fifteen, in fifty years, more than the US, and two thirds under fifteen. They also did not have the war industry where Nitrogen for bombs can be used to grow food.
So Party Hearty! For these are the good old days! |
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ruveyn
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 22, 2008
Age: 76
Posts: 29311
Location: New Jersey
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| Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 4:23 pm Post subject: Re: Athens is burning... |
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| GoonSquad wrote: |
I don't know what the answer to this is, but it seems obscenely unfair to try and fix this problem at the expense of the Greek working class...
After all, they did not crash the world economy... |
It is just that. If the plutocrats had done some decent investment and made Greece a productive nation, the workers could be earning good wages and have a decent break. But the bankers and financial types live at the expense of -real producers-. That seems to be the way of it. Putting Greece's house in order is going to hurt no matter what. There is no painless method of turning things around
And shame on Europe's banking and finance industry for enabling the foolishness in Greece. They are just as much to blame.
ruveyn |
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