Posted on 11/03/2011 6:26:25 AM PDT by John W
I work with a Greek-American engineer who just came back from Greece last week. He tells me that the percentage of people who work for the government is over 50%, not 30% as is usually reported. The rest are ‘retired’ on pensions and you can ‘retire’ as early as age 50 in some cases. That cannot work for long, and is now causing the collapse. Somebody has to actually work in the private sector to pay taxes........
As someone (I don’t know who) once said, “The only way to defeat a liberal is to give them everything they want.”............
Greece has a history of military coups.
As much as we all love watching the History Channel's endless documentaries of German troops marching through foreign capitols I doubt modern Germany has the stomach for conquest. Turkey, on the other hand, is Islamic, angry and agressive. They have come close to starting a few fights with the Greeks already.
is INTRADE giving odds on a NATO occupation yet?
The situation is about the same as here. Close to half the population is heavily dependent on government. The government class retires at age 50+. The government class demands that the private sector pay for their lifestyle regardless of the state of the economy.
Oh, BS.
Maximum Social Security benefit in the US: $28,392/year.
Maximum social insurance benefit in Greece: $101,927/year.
Average Social Security benefits in the US is $14,124/year. I wasn't able to find a specific number for Greece, but I saw a news report in the past couple of days that indicated it was approximately double that of the US.
Tax rates in Greece are 7% on the employee and 14% on the employer. The next result is that contributions are about 50% higher for each employee.
Normal retirement age is 65 in Greece, 66 in the US. Early retirement age in Greece is as early as 50.
The story of the European financial crisis is like watching a bad sci-fi movie where a social parasite killed off all of the working people and now the parasites are eating each other. Unreal. A spooky, self imposed Atlas shrugged. I do not like this picture.
The square where the rioting and burning went on is SMALL!!
I think we got out just in time!
They won’t.
If the EU is allowed to install a puppet gov’t, the Greeks will have lost what’s left of their sovereignty along with their shirts.
And a note to the other EU members: If they can do it to Greece, they can do it to you, too.
Mine too! I think a collapse of the Greek government would send the markets higher. After all, haven't they had several hundred governments since WWII?
Isn’t this is an example of globalism destroying national sovereignty? Regardless of what you think about Greece, it is a sovereign nation and its people should have a right to vote on their economic outcome, just as the Icelanders did and who told their bankers that the people were not going to eat their debt.
The Greek PM wants to give the Greek people the democratic right to decide if they wish to leave the Euro-zone but the world establishment doesn’t want the Greek people to have that right.
Unfortunately the USA doesn’t have the right of referendum as do some other countries. We should have it and we’d have a democracy that we the people could control and illegal immigration would be ended. Our time is coming for the USA when the world tells us what we must do and must give-up, such as firearms or military. Guaranteed. This one world order is coming home to roost and your rights as an American will be sacrificed in the name of world government.
Expect an issue on the day the welfare and government pension checks bounce. Either there or here.
Sounds like us and the public sector unions. Greek workers rioting in the streets, won’t go along with fairere measure like a longer work week or older retirement age. Where have I heard all those things before?
Next summer ought to be a doozy.
Even if G-Pap were to resign it isn’t really going to help the dire financial straits Greece is in.
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