Greece laid low by its decadence

[Memnoch]

Wow. I didn't realise things were that bad in Greece. I knew they'd shafted themselves by living beyond their means on borrowed money, but geez.

Brings up the question - America has been living beyond its means, to a large extent on borrowed money as well. Obviously the communist/socialist movement is stronger in Greece than it is here, but could this happen here down the road?

Greece laid low by its decadence Paul Sheehan May 17, 2010 - 11:06AM On Wednesday the bill comes due for Greece, and Greece can't pay. Instead, it is going to take Europe down to its level, to an economy that has been kept afloat for years by blackmail, self-delusion and other people's money. The metaphor for the decadence of modern Greece was years in the making but took shape on May 5, on Stadiou Street in the commercial district of Athens. Yet another mass strike by unionists and anarchists was making its way through the city. Three hooded men spun off from the march and began using hammers and rocks to smash the front window of the Marfin Egnatia Bank. After breaking the windows, and despite shouted warnings that there were people inside, the men lobbed several petrol bombs inside. Flames and smoke quickly engulfed the three-storey building. Upstairs, in her second-floor office, Paraskevi Zoulia, 34, known to her friends as Vivi, was at her desk. She was engaged to be married, and had been planning her wedding. She died of burns and smoke inhalation. A second young woman, Angeliki Papathanasopoulou, 32, who was four months pregnant, tried to escape the fire by climbing onto a balcony. She did not make it. A third co-worker, a young man, Epaminondas Tsalkis, 36, was found in a stairwell, asphyxiated by smoke. What happened next was just as disturbing. When fire and ambulance crews attempted to respond, they were hampered by demonstrators protesting against cuts to public sector pay packages. People were still shouting anti-capitalist slogans outside the bank even after the fire bombing. As the bank's chairman, Andreas Vgenopoulos, arrived at the scene soon after the attack, he was greeted by shouts of "murderer". One of the demonstrators shouted: "How many yachts do you own?" Police surrounded Vgenopoulos to protect him from the crowd. A video shows a man trying to break through the cordon to attack Vgenopoulos. The activist was bundled away by police in riot gear. In response to the incident, the Greek Federation of Bank Employees' Unions issued a statement blaming the bank for the deaths, citing inadequate safety measures. The federation called for strike action, even accusing the government of complicity: ''This tragic event that took the life of three of our colleagues, two women and a man, is the sad consequence of anti-popular [government] measures that whipped up popular anger." This absurd logic was then parroted on the hard-left websites. Typical was this tortured reasoning: ''Bank branches have been a regular target for protesters in the streets of Athens for years; for this reason, banks are boarded up on demonstration days. To lock up employees in a bank branch lying on the route of the biggest demonstration the country has seen in its post-dictatorial era is murderous negligence.'' The union front for the Communist Party, PAME, also blamed the government for the tragedy and called for a blockade of Parliament. It described the decision to endanger the workers by not closing the bank as a provocative act designed to ''demoralise the working class movement''. This is the depravity of modern Greece, where political street intimidation is routine and public debt is larger than the nation's gross national product. This debt has been used to pay the bribes demanded by the militants, to pay for a giant public sector that Greece cannot afford, and whose workers expect a generous pension from the age of 58. Finally, this collective madness reached crisis point. Many people have blood on their hands in today's Greece. Violent demonstrations are commonplace. Deceit is endemic. Tax avoidance is the national sport. The public sector is bloated and strike-ridden. The government is bankrupt. The nation is deluded. The Greeks lied to get into the European currency union, then spent like fools once they gained admission. With Wednesday's multimillion-dollar debt deadline looming for Greece, instead of allowing the country to default on its loans and accept reality, and for the euro-zone banks who lent so recklessly to absorb the consequences, the Greek cancer has been allowed to spread into the entire system of the European currency union. The European Central Bank, in concert with other agencies, has agreed to provide more than a trillion dollars (€750 billion) of more debt to prop up the euro-zone banking system. This is an enormous gamble, imposed by the political elite and technocratic class in Brussels, the headquarters of the European Union. At a stroke, this financial accord has significantly changed and enlarged the nature of the European Union, which will now issue bonds that carry Europe's AAA rating, to prop up nations in severe financial stress. The bailout is designed to protect the euro-zone banking system, which is even more leveraged than the American banks were going into the global financial crisis in 2008. That crisis, unlike this one, was caused by the convergence of the excesses of casino capitalism, and the US government's meddling in diluting the bank lending standards. It was a disastrous combination. Europe is largely burdened by a different disastrous convergence: a welfare system it can't sustain, excessive speculative lending by banks and, until last week, an inert European Central Bank. So the European Union has, de facto, extended its power into the banking system to save a currency union that is fractured in all but name. No one knows how this will unfold. The euro zone has a tectonic fault-line between the Teutonic north and the Mediterranean south. The German people, the ultimate lenders of last resort for all this economic excess, may revolt under the burden. As they should. My guess is that this massive gamble will ultimately fail. This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politi...0516-v66z.html

[Memnoch]

Now apparently the Greek government is thinking of suing Wall St banks for loaning them money beyond their capacity to pay! LOL. If your budget deficit is 14% of your GDP you can't really say you went into things with eyes wide shut.

[John D Harris]

You asked if the USA was headed down the same path.... Yes we are. In fy 2000 the total debt (on the books debt) was approx 56% of GDP, in fy 2008 the debt was approx 68%, in fy 2010 the debt will be approx 94% pf GDP with a yearly deficit of over 10%, that's $1,560,000,000,000 short fall. That's nearly 4 times the deficit in fy 2008. We're not under taxed we're overspent. We have to get it under control and under control quickly, I don't know what the spark will be, but I do know that if we don't get it under control the USA will burn from sea to shining sea. When we go down the rest of the world goes down, we're the Number #1 consumer, no business can survive when it's best customer quits buying.

The last offical US budget was passed in 06 or 07( I can't recall off the top of my pointed head), there has not been a budget passed since then, only continuing spending resolutions which have grown dramaticly.

[Firestormalpha]

Yeah if things don't change in the very near future, we're next. From what I've read, even if we do change things over here, the markets are still going to feel the impact of Europe's current situation. Is there a nation anywhere that's actually operating with 0 debt?

[Ziroc]

The USA thought the dow hitting 6000-ish was scary a while back? That was a bump. I have a bad feeling we're about to be hit with the one-two. This is the 'two'.

I've seen the spending friends do--buying a new car every other year, buying crazy stuff they put on credit cards.. It's all gonna default soon--I know MANY people that are about to file bankruptcy, or are on near it.

The ONLY way this can be 'fixed' is do a massive reset of all loans. basically kill all debt, and start over with new rules. or rules to protect abuse. hell, I don't know if this would work, as it would cause all stocks to fall to zero. since there would be nothing to trade worth a damn.

[Cerek]

Yes - we are headed in the same direction and are probably a lot closer to our own downfall than we care to consider. We've always been a materialistic nation, but the explosion of consumerism seems to have started in the early 80's with new technologies coming out and an economy strong enough to support uninhibited spending by many people. It got turbo-charged in the 90's with the market going through the roof - for awhile. Then the market began it's series of inevitable adjustments.

In the meantime, many Americans simply do NOT know how to separate NEEDS from WANTS! They consider them to be the same thing. I want it so I need to buy it RIGHT NOW!

I worked with a girl several years ago who had bought a new Mustang. Her car payment was higher than my house payment. Her car got repossessed, so she took out a personal loan to make the back-payments on her car loan and got her car back. A couple of months later, she ended up filing for bankruptcy. Did she learn anything from this? NO! The first day at work after her bankruptcy hearing, she was surfing the internet to plan a beach vacation. She said "Now that my debt has been wiped out, I can afford to go to the beach this summer. In fact, I might even be able to take two vacations" :facepalm:

[John D Harris]

Originally Posted by Ziroc The USA thought the dow hitting 6000-ish was scary a while back? That was a bump. I have a bad feeling we're about to be hit with the one-two. This is the 'two'. I've seen the spending friends do--buying a new car every other year, buying crazy stuff they put on credit cards.. It's all gonna default soon--I know MANY people that are about to file bankruptcy, or are on near it. The ONLY way this can be 'fixed' is do a massive reset of all loans. basically kill all debt, and start over with new rules. or rules to protect abuse. hell, I don't know if this would work, as it would cause all stocks to fall to zero. since there would be nothing to trade worth a damn.

IMHO we missed the last chance for a semi-orderly reset with the Tarp Bailouts, we shouldn't have ever done that. I agree Ziroc, I don't see how we can do a reset, without causing a complete colapse of the worlds markets, now. There might could be some kind of thing done where the banks/credit card companies, lenders make a deal to cut all debts by a percentage in order to make the landing a little softer. Though I wouldn't hold my breath that is going to happen. The banks and lenders have been for the last decade or so looking at what they can get, the interest rates, if they get it back. Not at if they lend the money will they get it back. Inshort counting their chickens before they hatch, something my Granny taught me not to do.

The good news is if one can hang on until it all colapses, there will be to many houses/cars/what evers for the banks to reposses they won't have enough employees to collect the toys, kick people out of their houses, etc. Make friends with your nieghbors, now because it's easier to do it now, then later when everybody is scrambling.

The bad news is with nearly everyone in the same boat and scrambling for resourses/food etc., there will be lots of violence. With the populations in the industral nations being 50-50 or 51-49 in the cities to rural. Apartment dwellers will have a hard time growing food. Sure folks can ban together and start gardens in the common areas, but all that is needed is a couple of A**holes to raid the Gardens and strip them of the food while eveybody sleeps to screw the pooch for everybody.

I know folks will think I'm being pessimistic, but I would say I'm being realistic. Look around and see how people treat each other. Watch the news see how folks steal from each other, kill each other, and that's when times are relatively good. What is going to happen when times get realy bad?

[Timber Loftis]

Cerek and JD, please quit with the senseless diatribe and rhetoric. We are not headed in the same direction, because we DO NOT march in protest against our banks and we DO NOT blame our banks for the problems we have. (Even though perhaps we should.) Instead we THROW MONEY at our banks. We almost worship them, with reverence, it would seem.

I have never heard of or seen a government employee protest march in the US, much less one that turned violent. I have seen government workers in some limited areas, such as Cook County, strike over wage negotiations, but nothing akin to a march or anything that turned violent. In fact, the only violent marches I have seen or heard of in this country since the civil rights era are marches perpetrated by environmental or anti-establishment groups, such as those in Seattle some 15 or more years ago.

[Timber Loftis]

BTW, in case anyone hasn't noticed, Americans have very quickly become much more responsible. Credit rates have shot up to an average of 710. This means that in the face of this crisis, people are shedding their debt, paying their bills, and hunkering down. (Note that someone who defaults or goes bankrupt does not have a rising credit score, so the only explanation for this rise is that people are paying off debt.)

[Ziroc]

Some high-ups say they want to switch to the 'Amero'. That might sound nice, but Mexico would destroy that quickly. I'd be different if they were more like Canada. (i.e. Stable)

I don't know.. I have always said greed is the downfall of all things, but wow, this is ridiculous.

My friends upgrade their PC's every YEAR it seems, and dump it on a credit card. I try to explain to them that software/games never catch up to the latest and greatest quickly, so upgrading every 3 years is more realistic. (I upgrade every 2-3 years.. mostly 3 years) as I don't play many games, it's mostly for graphics and website/forum creation.

I look and see prices on things... like I wanted to get a Beckett's baseball price guide--to see how my older baseball cards are doing, but they want $9.99 for a black and white (phonebook quality crap) pages. It USED TO be $3.99 a few years ago, so I said no thanks. I'll do without. That $10 can be a meal, or go to something more important right now...

We just gotta cut back. These credit card companies even try to get people right out of Bankruptcy to get a credit card--you would think they wouldn't want that, with a bad credit rating and all, but guess what? You can't file for bankruptcy for another 7 years (I believe its 7--something like that) and these credit card companies KNOW this, so they try to rope you in and basically have you under their foot at that time. So evil.... But it's also the person that is crazy enough to get that card, right?