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> Honestly Greece needs to default if only for their citizens to have to own up to the mess their politicians have made and continue to make. That's not the wh
by Mikeb85 11y ago
> Honestly Greece needs to default if only for their citizens to have to own up to the mess their politicians have made and continue to make.
That's not the whole story. The reason Greece is where it is today is because of the cruel austerity package imposed upon them by their European creditors. Here's a chart of their GDP: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/greece/gdp http://www.tradingeconomics.com/greece/gdp
Now of course there are other reasons as well - Greek manufacturing is non-existent, partly because they outsourced their manufacturing to Europe, who went to Greece en-masse for vacations, but then didn't when the global financial crisis hit.
And of course, having an integrated currency but separate government structures isn't the best idea when you have multiple economies that are at disparate levels of wealth. In an ideal world, Greece would have been able to manage their currency and exchange levels (ie. print money), but of course they couldn't.
As part of the EU, Greece essentially got the worst of both worlds - high import costs, lower (relative) income from tourism. And no control over their own currency. And to make matters worse, they got shit treatment from their creditors - their GDP has plunged since the onset of austerity measures, as has government income.
While perhaps Greece could have done more, they did what they were expected to as part of the EU, and it backfired horribly. Now they're finally doing what needs to be done, and the EU cries foul...
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago>That's not the whole story. The reason Greece is where it is today is because of the cruel austerity package imposed upon them by their European creditors. History doesn't start in 2010. Greece pretty much lied to get into the EU and is a badly run country, at best, and a corrupt hell-hole at worst. Low retirement ages, low taxation due to fraud, government being the largest employer, lack of diversification, etc. Its easy to take this hip anti-EU position for upvotes here, but you're defending a shittily run country in almost every respect.
- toothbrush 11y ago> Low retirement ages Please don't spread this toxic myth about Greece. http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/world-affairs/2012/05/exploding-myth-feckless-lazy-greeks http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/world-affairs/2012/05/expl...
- phdp 11y agoI don't necessarily think it's a myth. The author cites old data and then waves his hands and future predictions. http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/12/04/75-of-greek-pensioners-enjoy-early-retirement/ http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/12/04/75-of-greek-pensi...
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago“In the public sector, 7.91% of pensioners retire between the ages of 26 and 50, 23.64% between 51 and 55, and 43.53% between 56 and 61. In IKA, 4.44% of pensioners retire between the ages of 26 and 50, 12.83% retire between 51 and 55, and 58.61% retire between 56 and 61. Meanwhile, in the so-called healthy funds, 91.6% of people retire before the national retirement age limit,” Vroutsis said. See more at: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/12/04/75-of-greek-pensioners-enjoy-early-retirement/#sthash.4fxTdcBe.dpuf http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/12/04/75-of-greek-pensi...
- yequalsx 11y agoGiven your view, which I largely share, shouldn't the banks suffer as well for lending so much money to such a shittily run country? The so called bailout has been nothing more than a means of giving money to German and French banks without the German and French governments doing so in a direct manner. Germans and French get to blame lazy Greeks without having to blame their bankers.
- task_queue 11y agoApparently, it depends on if the banks hired any Greeks. If they did, then yes.
- Mikeb85 11y agoGovernment is the largest employer in most economies. 40% of the US' GDP is accounted for by the government, over 50 in Nordic countries. All developing economies have corruption and productivity issues, the problem isn't that Greece is below the European par, but that they haven't been given enough time, and European creditors set them back a decade.
- thejash 11y agoSorry, could you explain where the 40% number came from? I see 22% (which I calculated as $3.8T US 2015 fiscal budget [1] divided by $16.77T US GDP [2]) [1] https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/ https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud... [2] https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome-psyapi2&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8&q=us%20gdp https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome-psyapi2&ion=1&...
- Mikeb85 11y agohttp://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/oct/16/government-spending-countries-gdp http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/oct/16/governm... Here you go.
- iaskwhy 11y agoGreece didn't lie to get into the EU, that would be the eurozone instead.
- computer 11y agoRegarding that GDP: it's important to note that borrowing money (and spending it) pretty much directly increases GDP. So saying that austerity is causing a decline in GDP is only half the story: Greece borrowing too much money was one reason it was high in the first place.