Sorry but you can't blame the US for the fact that European banks CHOOSE to expose themselves to American markets...
The US and Europe are in the same boat in that their standard of living is falling due to globalization and governments try to borrow to save it. However, the specific Greece problem is specific to Europe and can only be blamed on the fact that there is monetary union and no fiscal union. Right now it doesn't seem like it works. Will Europe choose to abandon monetary union or increase fiscal control over member countries? That has nothing to do with the US.
Don't try to explain here, the whole CDO/CDS mess that has cost trillions all over the world was apparantly not caused by Joe Sixpack and his AAA-repackaged-by-Wall-Street-NINJA loan but was caused by European banks choosing to "expose" themselves to the USA market. You just have to look at the savings quotes of the last 20 years of Joe Sixpack to know what's going on, just one giant debt bubble exported to other countries.
The Greeks are lazy pieces of shit, just compare their retirement age (58) to Germany's (recently raised from 65 to 67.) They're pissed that they're going to have to work as long as everybody else.
He meant in general. Obviously not all Greeks are lazy. Just a lot of them.Im greek and i dont appreciate being called a lazy piece of shit, so why dont you shut the fuck up
He meant in general. Obviously not all Greeks are lazy. Just a lot of them.
It wasn't exported, those other country's came here to buy that worthless debt. They were all big boy's with expensive educations, but like everyone else, they were driven by greed.
The entire home loan system was a complete joke, anyone with half a brain knew those loans couldn't be paid back. But everyone was counting on ever increasing real estate prices to cover the bad loans. During that time, the value of my house increased over 26k per year, almost double what the mortgage payment was. Unsustainable growth by any measure. It almost had to blowup.
The human toll
Markets may be focused on Europe's struggle to bring its debts under control, but on the streets there's a struggle to survive.
The financial crisis, recession and, now, harsh cutbacks have led to despair amid wretched levels of unemployment and ever greater austerity measures in the Old World. Pushed by markets and ratings agencies, governments are demanding more and more from their people. Consider that:
- Reported suicides in Greece have just about doubled during the country's crisis, The Wall Street Journal notes today.
- Greece is hobbled by a jobless rate of about 16 per cent, Spain by about 20 per cent.
- According to reports last week, some drugs, including those used to fight cancer, have been withheld from some Greek hospitals that are late in their payments.
- Emigration, oft cited as the blight of Ireland, is rising sharply, according to the country's Central Statistics Office.
This comes as Athens pledges again to cut even deeper in a bid to win the support of its lenders and avert bankruptcy. Greek officials held another teleconference today with the European Union, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank, which are reviewing the country's plans. The EU said good progress was made, and talks will continue.
Im greek and i dont appreciate being called a lazy piece of shit, so why dont you shut the fuck up
Exactly. It's just like not all of us are obese, but Americans in general are a nation of fat fucks.
Greece needs a complete tax overall. Greece MUST increase tax revenues to avoid bankruptcy. But, increasing revenues in typical methods (or slashing spending) will destroy the economy, which makes the problem worse, which means more taxes and cuts in spending, which makes the problem worse, ...
The problem is their taxes are on income and sales. More taxes on both discourage spending. Instead, they need taxes that encourage spending. They need a stagnant money tax. Essentially a wealth tax (similar to property taxes or estate taxes that tax wealth).
Greek companies sitting on a pile of cash will face a choice: spend it or be taxed. They can spend it on capital investments to become more productive. They can spend it on hiring people for better service and more sales. They can spend it on engineers and scientists for R&D to develop intellectual property and be competitive for years to come. The more they spend, the less tax they pay and the better the Greek economy gets (more jobs, more income, more sales each of which boosts the Greek governments revenue). And the end result is more intellectual property and capital goods so Greece is strong in the future.
Greek people sitting on a pile of cash can again spend it (boosting the economy) or be taxed. This type of tax boosts economic activity instead of stifling it. Then the Greek government's spending cuts won't destroy thier economy since the companies and population spending increases will offset it.
If the wealth tax is high enough, they could even slash income and sales taxes. That would encourage the economy even more (and make the non-tax-paying people less of an issue). Best yet, put it on a sliding scale. Really low sales/income tax now that increases back to normal over the next 5 years. Encourage the spending NOW but without a sharp transition back to normal levels.
you are totally right, the tens of billions of Euro of tax money my govt. had to invest in the banks because of the worthless triple AAA rated USA toxic mortgage derivates are a total hallucination of my imagination. You are such a flagwaving idiot. These derivates were worthless because of Joe Sixpack and his spending habits, is that so hard to understand? My tax money first had to serve the Joe-SixPack-with-his-NINJA-loans bailout and now my tax money has to do a little sirtaki bailout. Please don't pretend that you guys are any better then the Greeks because we have seen the result of Wall Street the last few years, a financial crisis without precedent.
I hope you guys are on the hook for a lot of IMF money, you deserve it
Im greek and i dont appreciate being called a lazy piece of shit, so why dont you shut the fuck up
Greece has been hurriedly accepted into EU and eurozone (just like bulgaria and romania, who are in the union not eurozone) to set up a eastern border to the union by France and Germany. Greeks at that time were mesmerized by the quick and easily allocated euro funds and easy flow of capital (to be honest who would not be at their place ?) They have had "funds poisioning". i hope after 4-5 hard years they will get back to their feet
Greece's only valuable export is Greeks that want to work and earn their living.
It is pretty easy to prevent cash from flowing from one country to another. Many already have limits in place. Company can move to Germany, but their cash will stay behind being taxed year after year.All the rich Greek companies and individuals are very thankful that their wealth is in Euros then and doesn't fully indicate Greece's sorry economic state. Off to Germany they go to avoid that kind of tax!
I hope so too, but there doesn't seem to be much desire to get on their feet.Greece has been hurriedly accepted into EU and eurozone (just like bulgaria and romania, who are in the union not eurozone) to set up a eastern border to the union by France and Germany. Greeks at that time were mesmerized by the quick and easily allocated euro funds and easy flow of capital (to be honest who would not be at their place ?) They have had "funds poisioning". i hope after 4-5 hard years they will get back to their feet
Salient. Even if these measures are imposed they're still way heavier with the social safety nets than the US and it doesn't feel all that brutal over here. But then we're not lazy GreeksFunny how doing what we're already doing is called "brutal austerity measures".
just like European taxpayers who had to save European banks with European tax money because of Americans who were buying houses they could not afford?
some of you guys have a very short term memory
I agree totally.Quite a lot of the TARP money went to European banks.
We bought their toxic securities. And I don't think we should have. If European banks wanna invest, then they are responsible for their investment decisions.
If the Euro banks believe they were mislead by Moody's or whomever, then sue Moody's.
I do not like, or approve of the model whereby if/when Euro banks invest in US securities and get a profit they keep it, but if there's a loss the US taxpayer reimburses them. Just more of the whole "privatized profits, socialized losses".
Fern
The Greeks are lazy pieces of shit, just compare their retirement age (58) to Germany's (recently raised from 65 to 67.) They're pissed that they're going to have to work as long as everybody else.
If the USA can afford to give out $500Bil to a failing solar panel company, then we dont need any tax increases, we just need to quit giving money away to companies. There are probably hundreds of deals like this where the USA Federal Government is giving money to losers. So when we say we want to cut the budget, lets quit giving away green money and money for all of these kinds of projects.
Just give away money to tax payers that live in smaller houses.
Goldman Sachs helped a corrupt government to misrepresent the financial condition of Greece to get them into the EU, IIRC. This had costs; the wrongdoers profited.
I have spend some time in Greece and you are 100% right. They have short working hours early retirement age etc. Greeks are probably some of the most lazy people I have ever seen. If you compare them to Germans they just look even more like lazy slugs. I have also heard horror stories of how they abuse emigrants.Greece's only valuable export is Greeks that want to work and earn their living. I've lived there 3 months out of the year, for 25 years.
The people in Greece are lazy corrupt dogs. They hire Albanians to do their back breaking work and then complain how Albanians are destroying Greece. How they need to close their borders and not allow any Albanians into their country. Wait a minute,... where have I seen this again,...