What is it with politicians these days? Their function in life is to handle the economy and law & order.
Economy is jobs, no jobs creates no economy, no jobs creates civil unrest.
Although Greece obviously has to make savings, it will not get out the mess until there are more jobs - it is up to the politicians to create jobs, Greece has not been given one bit of help towards creating jobs, indeed most of the imposed conditions will do the opposite.
There are hardly any other European countries that could afford to throw some industry in Greece's direction but the obvious industry that could be boosted is ship-making, if contracts get thrown in Greece's direction it would affect the UK shipmakers.
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
I think each country should contribute by a percentage of their exposure to the Greek debt. I include Britain and non European countries who speculated on making money before the crisis.They would then be saving themselves to the same degree of their greed. Britain is moaning about making a contribution (contribution now denied) and yet countries who had nothing to do with it, apart from being in the Euro Zone have to pay.The banks again putting World peace at risk to make a cheap buck.
Well, what a turn up for the book , IMF have waited till the 11th hour before sticking their boot into the mix . Everybody and his dog knew that Greece had no way of ever repaying , yet only now the day of the Greek parliaments decision do the IMF speak out . Why?
IMF want a Greece that can recover, they got pee'd off with the ECB/EU proposals a few weeks ago as it was an extremely short term survival package that was doomed to failure in the long term..
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
I get that bit , I just dont understand why they have left it till the final day - there has to be a particular reason for the timing surely, what extra advantage/pressure/benefit/ has it given them I wonder. Some brinkmanship perhaps to see who can be drawn outlast minute to show their hand ?
Testing the water, maybe. See how the proposals are accepted/not accepted, and then at the last minute, come up with something slightly different that reduces the impact and makes things a little more palatable for everyone.
None of these institutions are led by fools. They confer constantly and have a bag of tricks up their sleeve. Greece has been pushed to the brink, so in an attempt for them not to leave the EU or Eurozone, a sweetener is to be dished up, to bring them back again, in line with the original expectations that were pre-arranged, but that most didn't know about until now, maybe.
Psychology plays a major part on such things.
Only my view.
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. ~Chief Seattle
They haven't changed their story, just restating the blatantly obvious yet again. Germany is forcing an agreement that is completely pie-in-the-sky.
For Greece to achieve a surplus for decades is impossible. Its a credit to Greece that it got into surplus in 2014, most other European countries didn't and they are in far healthier economies than Greece.
Germany needs to accept that money was lent unwisely and have to share the blame and the loss, of course they don't want to but if they don't then the same process is going to repeat and yet more money will be at risk and Greece will be in a deeper mess - how long could a country survive with zero international trade and zero money - probably about a week before people start dying?
Cameron is spot on when he is now starting to talk about humanitarian aid for Greece, it could well end up as the most poverty stricken country in the world unless a proper rescue package is orchestrated. A brilliant credit to the EEC's ideals.
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
With all the other countries queuing up to become part of EU , Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia ,Turkey, I can't imagine that Greece will be the last. There could be a constant bail out for decades and I doubt that there will be enough industry to make each country flourish in whatever they are able to scoop and build on from other countries. Of course, we will not be countries eventually, simply States who adhere to the command from central European Government or Presidency.
I love the way politicians from other countries have been referring to the 'European project'. Being sarcastic ! A project with peoples lives should no be what it is about.
We don't hear much about what Romania is up to. If they were doing any good, why are they all coming over here ?
Germany are really blotting their copy book.
Last edited by granny; 15th Jul 20159:00pm.
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. ~Chief Seattle
Sorry, grammar went completely out of the window .
Germany is really blotting it's copy book, and other errors.
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. ~Chief Seattle
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. ~Chief Seattle
Romania isn't doing too badly compared to other countries, much better than us, but as with many countries its been many years since they have been in surplus.
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
Anyone else see this on Sky News yesterday? Reporters were interviewing the Greek public on the street about the latest bail-out deal/austerity measures, etc. and spoke to this guy standing in front of a graffitied wall.
I noticed the € = Swastika and the WW2 years, and being curious, I snapped a pic, (and after coming up empty with Google Translate,) slapped it on Facebook asking if anyone could translate it. Turned out someone could...
A Greek guy called Yannis gave me the following answer;
Perhaps the figure should be 500,000 which is the approximate number of Greek civilians that died of famine or hunger due to the occupation of Greece by Germany, Italy and Bulgaria.
5 million is normally the quoted figure of Jewish holocaust deaths of which around 60,000 were Greek.
Whatever, I can understand their resentment.
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
