Hey Greeks

Yeah, shit like that happens here in Argentina too. You may be kidnapped at random (not planned), which is called "secuestro express" ("express kidnapping" ). i.e. driving late at night in a bad neighborhood and suddenly some random guy throws himself in front of your car. Many people stop and if you do... random guy points his gun at you and makes you go to an ATM to get all the cash they can, and they me even force you to go to your place and steal whatever they want there too and/or request a ransom for your freedom. Scary stuff.
 
USA Wins. Congrats!

not necessarily!

if people think shit's going down hard in greece, just wait 6 months or so, when the US is estimated to hit the debt ceiling...again...this time to the tune of 18+ trillion dollars. it's also quite convenient that this is right around the same time as the elections, which means that neither the congress or president will be in much of a mood to raise this again, which will either force the government into immediate and crippling spending cuts, or will cause the federal government to default on its debt, which will absolutely wreck investment markets and the economy as a whole

at that point, i wouldn't be surprised to see the federal reserve magically print off trillions worth of fresh dollars to lend to the government, which will cause hyper-inflation and leave all but the richest individuals with next to nothing
 
^
Yes I checked yesterday, Europe is more or less at 70% or 80% GCP debt, which is a lot but average in the most powerful economies these days (a lot of countries are at next to no debt but these countries also have the GCP of a few streets in manhattan). USA has hit 100% in 2011, and started from 50% only a few years ago. Greece is at 160 atm, Italy 115, Spain 85, France 80 (can't remember the exact values). It's worth mentioning Japan is due to hit 239% by the end of the year.
It doesn't mean everything as things are more complex than "I have the least debts so I'm doing better" but USA is increasing its debt exponentially, with something like 15 to 20% a year. The only reason why people talk much more about Europe than USA is because UsA doesnt fear for its currency, and because of media. The good thing about USA and which saves its ass is that it's market is very flexible, every year there are almost 10% of business that disappear there, but the result is that the working one actually work. The downside is the number of homeless and non covered people, and the many persons who are not part of the party.

A last thing about the Euro, it is at the moment a Unique currency which means its technically used by everyone physically, and it might still exist as a Common currency which would keep things together a little, by not losing everything that has been done and still exists in the market for trade and conversion calculations.

About what I read a few posts earlier, I do believe socialism is a good thing, the problem is that it does cost a little more than pure liberalist capitalism which is more of a jungle. I think it is harder to keep things together but worth it in the long term, as it is fair IMO.
 
About what I read a few posts earlier, I do believe socialism is a good thing, the problem is that it does cost a little more than pure liberalist capitalism which is more of a jungle. I think it is harder to keep things together but worth it in the long term, as it is fair IMO.

What's funny is that this might not actually be true - one of the biggest problems with capitalism is that prices almost never represent true cost of an item. There's a certain systematic violence that's fundamentally attached to capitalism that we just don't see in most of the 1st world because true costs are dumped elsewhere. We try to solve these problems with even more capitalist consumerism (ie Starbucks' free trade 'coffee karma' spiel, Toms' one-for-one shoes thing, buying 'locally grown/organic' produce, etc) that attempts to bundle the offset true-costs into the cost of an item, but in reality that's more or less fixing with the left hand what you destroy with the right. Don't get me wrong; it's certainly better than nothing, but there's some inherent hypocrisy in something like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, where you're using money derived from a capitalist system to solve problems more or less caused by that same system.
 
In the UK it is frighteningly simple - we artifically inflated the size of the state so that it accounts for up to 80% of the economy depending on where you go. A country can only have a certain proportion of its workforce paid by tax income before it becomes detrimental to growth, and we're considerably past that threshold. We keep borrowing money to pay for the state, because it is so large we can't actually support it ourselves and the whole time we have the idiots in Labour saying things like 'you can't cut state jobs, we need people in work to stimulate the economy and pay taxes!'. Do they not realise that those jobs are being paid entirely by tax (or worse, public debt)?

They must realise this. They're just aware of how the majority of workers in the country depend on the state and will vote against 'austerity' and in favour of inevitable economic oblivion.
 
In the UK it is frighteningly simple - we artifically inflated the size of the state so that it accounts for up to 80% of the economy depending on where you go. A country can only have a certain proportion of its workforce paid by tax income before it becomes detrimental to growth, and we're considerably past that threshold. We keep borrowing money to pay for the state, because it is so large we can't actually support it ourselves and the whole time we have the idiots in Labour saying things like 'you can't cut state jobs, we need people in work to stimulate the economy and pay taxes!'. Do they not realise that those jobs are being paid entirely by tax (or worse, public debt)?

They must realise this. They're just aware of how the majority of workers in the country depend on the state and will vote against 'austerity' and in favour of inevitable economic oblivion.


That's because you guys haven't figured out permanent consumption like we have. Start bombing brown people and waging imaginary wars against abstract concepts like 'terrorism' and 'drugs' and you'll be fine. Sort of. :lol:
 
Yeah but at the same time Norway is very expensive to live in so I don't know how much a comparison you can make with that. I don't know how much the different levels of life cost matter ?

??? what i was trying to draw attention to was the greece has the 3rd longest working hours on the list.
 
Yeah, shit like that happens here in Argentina too. You may be kidnapped at random (not planned), which is called "secuestro express" ("express kidnapping" ). i.e. driving late at night in a bad neighborhood and suddenly some random guy throws himself in front of your car. Many people stop and if you do... random guy points his gun at you and makes you go to an ATM to get all the cash they can, and they me even force you to go to your place and steal whatever they want there too and/or request a ransom for your freedom. Scary stuff.

Here we have the express kind too.
Acctually I was express kidnapped. (we call it sequestro relâmpago) or flash kidnap. They took my 40.000 value car and drove with me to a far away farm, let me 24 km far away from civilization at 11 pm.
Damm, that was bad.
 
??? what i was trying to draw attention to was the greece has the 3rd longest working hours on the list.

Ah didn't catch it sorry !

About free trade stuff : yeah that's BS, and used as a marketing tool more than anything else. I remember some time ago when getting the Max Haavelar logo was a big deal. But only few productors participate in this program, don't prosper as much as people would think they do, while the others still sell their rice or coffee at an incredibly low price. And it's more or less like the carbon tax, it doesn't solve any problem in the end
 
There's about 2.000.000 out of our approximate total 10.000.000
who evade tax payment and most of them are direct clients to
a certain party or politician. I blame them ;
They have the biggest share of the responsibility for the present situation.

The rest of us work more than 60 hours (I worked 96) a week to maintain a decent standard of life. We pay taxes.
And we are governed by rich manipulators who have never worked, been to a public hospital or faced a financial difficulty.

My friends from the USA, UK and Germany (and other countries) have personally told me there's tax evasion in all of their countries.
It's not overtly discussed but at some point it will be.

There's no such thing as an innocent lender or loan.
It's a long term investment and since nobody wants to loose their $$, they secure it well.
You can draw your own conclusions about what the EU is.

When greece got loans, its politicians and those of the lending countries knew what they were doing.
The rest of the people were oblivious.
And they kept paying their taxes.
And kept living their lives just like everybody else.

Would you lend money to a person with virtually no income ? No.
Would you lend money to a person with virtually no income but with great assets ? Yes.

Greek assets : beauty, uranium, gold, petrol, sun, wind, sea etc etc
Game point : The greedy intermediators (greek politicians) get richer and the lenders get a country.

All those decision makers involved knew and benefited.
'Cause whatever the outcome it would be the layman/people who would have to pay.
The people of all countries. And it would be difficult to see they're scapegoats. Peoples would blame each other.
It's a great plan, I give them that.

If Greece is the devil it will soon end, it's 1/50 of the EU economy, perfect.
But Spain ? Italy ? Portugal ? Ireland ? Whose next ?

Me ? I've lost my home, my car, my life as I knew it.
I blame nobody but myself and those in power.
But there's this thread about a fellow forumer who's got cancer.
Suddenly my problems seem insignificant. I deference to him I shall stop here.
 
There's about 2.000.000 out of our approximate total 10.000.000
who evade tax payment and most of them are direct clients to
a certain party or politician. I blame them ;
They have the biggest share of the responsibility for the present situation.

The rest of us work more than 60 hours (I worked 96) a week to maintain a decent standard of life. We pay taxes.
And we are governed by rich manipulators who have never worked, been to a public hospital or faced a financial difficulty.

My friends from the USA, UK and Germany (and other countries) have personally told me there's tax evasion in all of their countries.
It's not overtly discussed but at some point it will be.

There's no such thing as an innocent lender or loan.
It's a long term investment and since nobody wants to loose their $$, they secure it well.
You can draw your own conclusions about what the EU is.

When greece got loans, its politicians and those of the lending countries knew what they were doing.
The rest of the people were oblivious.
And they kept paying their taxes.
And kept living their lives just like everybody else.

Would you lend money to a person with virtually no income ? No.
Would you lend money to a person with virtually no income but with great assets ? Yes.

Greek assets : beauty, uranium, gold, petrol, sun, wind, sea etc etc
Game point : The greedy intermediators (greek politicians) get richer and the lenders get a country.

All those decision makers involved knew and benefited.
'Cause whatever the outcome it would be the layman/people who would have to pay.
The people of all countries. And it would be difficult to see they're scapegoats. Peoples would blame each other.
It's a great plan, I give them that.

If Greece is the devil it will soon end, it's 1/50 of the EU economy, perfect.
But Spain ? Italy ? Portugal ? Ireland ? Whose next ?

Me ? I've lost my home, my car, my life as I knew it.
I blame nobody but myself and those in power.
But there's this thread about a fellow forumer who's got cancer.
Suddenly my problems seem insignificant. I deference to him I shall stop here.

^cool, this is a solid post, I like it.

Also, this is an example of the latest battle: bank owners are paying the media to publish stories like this:

"An exit from the euro would see Greeks lose more than half their annual income and prompt a dramatic rise in unemployment and inflation, a report from the country's largest bank has warned."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/05/29/international/i071315D93.DTL#ixzz1wHqtNkcD

I don't have proof that a bank owner paid for this. But if this were a fair, unbiased article, it would also say that this:

"Also we should mention that if Greece decides to stay on the Euro then they are fucked for the next 50 years. So this study, which was done by the banks, can go fuck itself."
 
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/06/04/bloomberg_articlesM53U5V6KLVR801-M541C.DTL

This article has changed my mind on this. If Greece refuses to pay back their loans, then the bankers will do everything in their power to make a bad example of Greece so that other countries will be scared to default.

This would be really, really bad for Greece. Don't fuck with bankers; they have a powerful wrath. They are like savages. They will make an example of their enemies so that others will fear disobedience. Greece is in no position to fuck with anything.

Really, I see three options for Greece to come out of this unscathed:
1. Beg to join the USA as an American territory (unlikely to work, but at this point anything is worth a shot)
2. Beg to join Russia (might actually work)
3. Beg to join China (this probably would work, but it's not really unscathed)