Greece Collapsing Under Weight of Massive Welfare

[HereWeGoAgain]

Did Greece come to the banks with a need for money?

Yes. Every day, every deficit spending country, including Merka, comes to the banks with a need for money.

Did the banks facilitate that request and supply Greece with the money?

Absolutely. See link I provided earlier.

Has anything illegal, immoral or fattening taken place here? Answer: No.

Immoral? Absolutely. You betcha.

Illegal? No. The banks own the governments who write the regulations. Just take a peek at any politician and see who their biggest donors are.

Go ahead. Democrat or Republican. Doesn't matter. You'll be lucky if you find more than two or three who aren't owned by Wall Street.

OK so the banks provided a service to a government that needed it.
Nothing illegal was done.
Nothing immoral was done, despite whatever bullshit you think.
A non issue.

And if Greece had managed to unfuck its economy and generate some tax revenue via an expanding economy and not pillaging its citizens it would have been able to make its interest payments. Duh.

People evade taxes in Greece, no matter what the tax rate.

Isn't this what conservatives promote? Pay lower taxes and everything will be fine?

No, dunderhead. This is exactly the point that conservatives make: If you make the tax rate too high people will engage in tax evasion to the detriment of the economy. Greece demonstrates exaclty that.

Are you trying to kill their dream of the utopian society?

 

[The Rabbi]

Thats obvious.
It's kinda like the dumb shit who buys a car from one of those "You Buy Here You Pay Here!!" places and he doesnt have a job.

And so does this mean you understand the concept of "predatory lending"?

Greece is the dumb shit. Wall Street is the predatory lender.

And the public gets fucked in the ass.

Greece is a dumbshit? You're the dumbshit.
Greece lied to the EU and falsified financial data. Greece borrowed money it knew it could never pay back. Greece tried to suck, fuck and cajole money out the EU, the IMF, Putin, The Germans, anyone who would give them money. They agreed to austerity measures and as soon as the loans were approved they went back on them and smushed them in the Europeans' faces.
Greece is like your failure brother in law coming to you one more time with a sob story for a loan.

 

[Iceweasel]

People evade taxes in Greece, no matter what the tax rate.

Isn't this what conservatives promote? Pay lower taxes and everything will be fine?

We promote spending less than you take in and creating a business friendly environment. That's where the money is really made.

 

[rdean]

What happens when more people depend on government spending than the number who contribute? Well, you realize what happens when leftist politicians take you on an unsustainable course. Since you always run out of other peoples' money, the only end is that eventually you will collapse under your own weight.

Instead of making needed cuts in spending and making the necessary changes to recover, they will now have nothing.

I see no difference in the policies the Dems are embracing here. Are they wanting us to collapse or are they so ignorant that they think they can do the same thing that's been done before and have a different outcome for once?

Politics Under weight of massive welfare state Greece about to default on IMF loans Best of Cain

It's not the fault of the poor. It's income inequality and redistributing the wealth of the nation to the top 1%. Exactly what Republicans are desperately trying to do here in this country. If they studied history of this country, they would know the country was the most prosperous when the income inequality gap was much narrower. But the GOP base has been brainwashed, something very easy to do when people are both ignorant and racist.

How Greek austerity has stoked inequality - ToUChstone blog

Among other things, it shows that between 2008 and 2012, taxation, which made a 72.4% contribution to ‘fiscal adjustments’, was increased by 337.7% for lower income households, compared to just 9% for higher income groups. It observes a sharp growth in income inequality between 2008-12, ‘amid growing poverty and total pauperisation of a substantial part of Greek society,’ leading to the conclusion that the ‘emergence and persistence of such divides implies that certain categories of people have come out as winners from the crisis’.

 

[hipeter924]

I arrange a loan to a horrible borrower, and get a fee. I immediately pass the paper for that loan to a sucker. The risk is out of my hands, and now I have more cash to make more bad loans, and make more fees. All the while, all that bad debt is getting passed on to rube private investors who buy into my hocus-pocus marketing gibberish. I even convince the ratings agencies that toxic debt is AAA gold! MWA-HA-HA-HA!

The day of reckoning will come when it is time to revolve all that bad credit, and the house will crash down. But don't worry, the government will rescue the rich investors, and the public will assume all that toxic debt. Yay capitalism! Nothing wrong here!

Even better, the very public I just fucked up the ass will say...get this... I was forced to make those bad loans! You will never never never hear ME say it, but THEY will. BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!

Oh my god, it's so unfuckinglybelievably good to be in this life.

I'm not sure the thread's touched upon it, but you noted the banks got bailed out, not the Greeks. There's a problem with calling for more austerity in that unemployment in Greece is trending over 25%, and I'm sure it's a lot worse if you just measured workers in the private sector. Simply put, there are a lot of retirees who retired in their 40s who are now supporting out of work adult children with their pensions. Not that any of it's "right," but in a sense Greece needs a bankruptcy to let it re-start.

And, The OP's a bit of dramaqueen, imo.

Greece has to default. There is no way around it.

Flip flopper aren't you.

One minute you rage against the implication that Greek couldn't have defaulted earlier, left the Eurozone, and got a better deal, then you slam the those that want the deal to pass.

Make up your mind. You are either:
A) For the deal being struck, in which case you believe default is a bad idea.
B) Against the initial bailout, and opposed to the IMF/World Bank/ECB that threw money at the Greek money hole - and thus believe early default would have been better.
C) Supportive of the bailout, and opposed the creditors aka the banks, IMF, ECB, and World Bank.

I am B, as the deal was doomed to fail from the start.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Greece is supposedly some ancient civilization, right?

How come they didn't see this coming

 

[CrusaderFrank]

What happens when more people depend on government spending than the number who contribute? Well, you realize what happens when leftist politicians take you on an unsustainable course. Since you always run out of other peoples' money, the only end is that eventually you will collapse under your own weight.

Instead of making needed cuts in spending and making the necessary changes to recover, they will now have nothing.

I see no difference in the policies the Dems are embracing here. Are they wanting us to collapse or are they so ignorant that they think they can do the same thing that's been done before and have a different outcome for once?

Politics Under weight of massive welfare state Greece about to default on IMF loans Best of Cain

It's not the fault of the poor. It's income inequality and redistributing the wealth of the nation to the top 1%. Exactly what Republicans are desperately trying to do here in this country. If they studied history of this country, they would know the country was the most prosperous when the income inequality gap was much narrower. But the GOP base has been brainwashed, something very easy to do when people are both ignorant and racist.

How Greek austerity has stoked inequality - ToUChstone blog

Among other things, it shows that between 2008 and 2012, taxation, which made a 72.4% contribution to ‘fiscal adjustments’, was increased by 337.7% for lower income households, compared to just 9% for higher income groups. It observes a sharp growth in income inequality between 2008-12, ‘amid growing poverty and total pauperisation of a substantial part of Greek society,’ leading to the conclusion that the ‘emergence and persistence of such divides implies that certain categories of people have come out as winners from the crisis’.

Sure, Dean. It was the Kulaks!

 

[Rozman]

Greece is supposedly some ancient civilization, right?

How come they didn't see this coming

This has been on the horizon for some time.
Had to have been.
You don't wake up one morning and realize your fucked and head to the ATM machine or the bank.

 

[LogikAndReazon]

Dont they understand that they just need to print more money, double down on spending, and increase the minimum wage...... Lmfao

 

[hipeter924]

Greece is supposedly some ancient civilization, right?

How come they didn't see this coming

Greece didn't see a lot of things coming, from plagues, to the Persian invasion.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Dont they understand that they just need to print more money, double down on spending, and increase the minimum wage...... Lmfao

The government needs to invest in infrastructure, roads and bridges

 

[mikegriffith1]

The problem is that Greece's politicians could not bring themselves to make the budget cuts that were necessary. They are like the spendaholic who can't stop using his credit cards, can't stop going into debt. When he starts to reach a point where he's finding it hard to get more credit, he finally, belatedly embarks on a modest plan of "austerity," i.e., living within his means--but only up to a point. He doesn't make the painful cuts that are necessary. He makes some cuts, and they do indeed cause him distress, but he would not be in this mess if he had not wildly spent beyond his means in the first place. If he had tried to get his fiscal affairs in order sooner, the adjustment would have been less painful.

So he tries "austerity" and finds that it's too painful for him to handle. Then he goes back to his old ways. For a time, he's "glad" he's given up on "austerity." Then, not too much later, he finds himself in an even worse situation, and this time the necessary measures will be even more painful.

We had better learn our lesson from Greece and stop this reckless fiscal policy before "austerity" is very painful. The sooner we do it, the less painful it will be.

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

Greece is supposedly some ancient civilization, right?

How come they didn't see this coming

This has been on the horizon for some time.
Had to have been.
You don't wake up one morning and realize your fucked and head to the ATM machine or the bank.

Oh I dont know....Americans are acting the same way as we speak.
It can never happen here.....

 

[g5000]

Nice fantasy, except those creditors steadfastly refused to take a haircut. By the time the creditors were willing to accept a haircut, the debt had snowballed past the point of no return.

They were expecting the IMF and the governments to bail them out. Which in fact happened. Most of the debt is owed to those folks.

That debt was originally owed to banks and the financial sector. As I have said several times, investors.

The IMG and the governments bailed out the banks and now the taxpayers of those countries are left holding the bag.

Yup. Aint Socialism grand?

Ah! You are finally beginning to see it isn't capitalism the banks are doing! Well done. You get a gold star.

The banks are making rational calculations based on the politics they see going on around them. If the pols would dig their heels in and say "no bailouts" banks would change their behavior.

On this point, I wholeheartedly agree. "Moral hazard". The whole TBTF fiasco all started with Continental Illinois in 1984.

Then Long Term Capital Management in 1998 was the presaging death knell which should have woken a lot of people up, but didn't.

I dont blame banks. They're acting rationally for the good of their investors. That's what they ought to do.
Government is the problem.

Well, look at you now! At the beginning you were cheering all this as the greatness of capitalism.

Wall Street pays a lot of money to our American Politiboro to keep their sclerotic business models alive.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

I blame FDIC insurance.

 

[rdean]

Thats obvious.
It's kinda like the dumb shit who buys a car from one of those "You Buy Here You Pay Here!!" places and he doesnt have a job.

And so does this mean you understand the concept of "predatory lending"?

Greece is the dumb shit. Wall Street is the predatory lender.

And the public gets fucked in the ass.

Greece is a dumbshit? You're the dumbshit.
Greece lied to the EU and falsified financial data. Greece borrowed money it knew it could never pay back. Greece tried to suck, fuck and cajole money out the EU, the IMF, Putin, The Germans, anyone who would give them money. They agreed to austerity measures and as soon as the loans were approved they went back on them and smushed them in the Europeans' faces.
Greece is like your failure brother in law coming to you one more time with a sob story for a loan.

They wouldn't need to borrow money if the rich paid their fair share.

 

[Synthaholic]

Greece Collapsing Under Weight of Massive Welfare

Meme FAIL.

 

[Socialist]

Feel free to ignore the tax evasion, the actions of wall street, greece's history, etc, etc.. also, feel free to ignore the majority of successful countries with evil "welfare." Grow up.

 

[Synthaholic]

Greece should have been using it's national industry - shipping - to bring tourists to Greece for free. It would have been a Tourist Stimulus. It's one of the most desirable destinations in the world, and people from around the globe would be bringing in hard currency, filling hotels, restaurants, bars. They could make deals with their ship companies to compensate them, with tax eliminations, etc.

 

[LordBrownTrout]

Hope everyone has their financials in order. 2007-2008 will seem like a lovely stroll in the park compared to whats about to happen. Watch the index of currency movements out of country. Its astounding and 10 magnitudes higher.