Greek crisis: ‘We rely on imports. Soon even the most basic goods won’t be available’
Greece is facing a humanitarian crisis and business is likely to suffer because of capital controls, say Greek MPs and business owners
Greece debt crisis: vote yes to stay in the euro, says Juncker – live updates
1. Rich Greeks refused to pay their taxes. (Tax evasion is Greece’s national sport.)
2. As a result, the Greek government is broke, and can’t pay its bills.
3. So Greece’s creditors, i.e. governments and banking institutions run by conservatives, want to impose “austerity” on Greece.
4. This means cutting the wages and pensions of poor Greeks because rich Greeks don’t pay taxes.
5. The result is street riots in Athens and the election of a socialist government. If you think the solution to this is more austerity, just remember that Greece, which already has 50% youth unemployment and 25% overall employment, can always make money by renting military bases to Putin if they get desperate enough.
Yeah, wingnut austerity Whack-O-Nomics is working just great in Greece.
@ 7
You left out a couple of things:
• On pensions, the key concerns on the creditor side are those of the International Monetary Fund. The Washington-based fund has long argued that Greek pension funds receive budget transfers of about 10 per cent of GDP each year. “This compares to the average in the rest of the euro zone of 2½ per cent of GDP,” IMF spokesman Gerry Rice told reporters earlier this month.
“The standard pension in Greece is almost at the same level as in Germany and people, again on the average, retire almost six years earlier in Greece than in Germany. And GDP per capita increase, of course, is less than half that of the German level.”
http://www.irishtimes.com/busi…..-1.2263345
• Creditors have already taken a 50% haircut, back in 2011.
Germans retiring in their mid-late 60s have little reason to sympathize with overborrowing Greeks unwilling to give up their early 60s retirements and 80% pensions, especially after agreeing to forego return of half of what they loaned.
Eastern Europen EU members with living standards below those of Greece similarly have little sympathy left.
Greece, in January, voted to hit the iceberg. Time for the baroque quartet to gather next to the lifeboats.