Spaniards inspired and dismayed by Greek result
Source: Deutsche Welle
Despite a recent improvement, the Spanish economy is vulnerable to turmoil from Greece. The rise of anti-austerity party Podemos, meanwhile, has drawn inevitable political comparisons.
With Greece's future in turmoil in the wake of the referendum, Spain is expected to be one of the countries that is most vulnerable to possible contagion in the coming weeks and months. That is partly due to its economic situation, but also because of the political uncertainty that the sudden rise of Podemos has helped generate.
Podemos chief Iglesias (right) could reap benefits at the polls from the Greek case
"What's happening in Greece won't happen in Spain because this is a trustworthy country," Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said last week, as he hosted former French president Nicolas Sarkozy in Madrid. Rajoy has frequently defended the strict austerity measures his conservative government has implemented over the last four years, describing them as an effective shield against future economic shocks.
"The fact that Greece is in a critical economic situation is bad for Podemos, it generates fear among voters," said Fernandez-Albertos, who has written a book about the party.
Read more: http://www.dw.com/en/spaniards-inspired-and-dismayed-by-greek-result/a-18564026
Let's hope Spain can remain stable enough to insulate itself from Greek contagion.
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Lurks Often
(5,455 posts)Spain and possibly Italy. I wonder how many other countries could be considered vulnerable as well. Hopefully there will be no domino effect.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)Lurks Often
(5,455 posts)handled the wrong way, I can see a slide into another world wide economic depression.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)
Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)Many German sources on the issue are unreliable. A society, like the British, in the thrall of neoliberal oligarchic economic & social propaganda. Deutsche Bank and various Landesbanken were/are vulnerable, so ordinary (preferably non-german) people must pay. Germany should leave the Eurozone, revalue its currency, then rejoin at a higher rate.
Or else projecting the whole concept of European solidarity was just a trick in order to take advantage, as far as German elites were/are concerned. And their 'reunification' was a big mistake.
Edit: I'm a Brit in Spain, since these many years past (half my life), now trying to live off the returns from savings I 'invest' (speculate with) myself on my own account, supplemented by some occasional 'off-the-books' activity... (like most of us around here).
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)closer political integration--a truly Federal States of Europe, where the wealth and risks are more equally shared.
Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)would be the way to proceed...
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)UK was never, in its heart, really in the EU in the first place (also just looking for its own advantage). I expect the English part of UK, at least, to soon leave.
Of course the decision to retain Sterling and not join the Eurozone was correct for UK.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)their 'European' identity.
And, the French knew it. They've been calling England 'Perfidious Albion' for a thousand years.
DeGaulle refused to have them. It was only after his demise that their application was considered.
Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts) 
Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)
Igel
(35,320 posts)One could almost call the EU a weak confederacy as it is.
The US was a confederacy and that didn't work out so well. (And, no, I'm not referring to the throwback Confederate States of America in the Civil War; it returned in some ways to the pre-1792 structure, and that was an additional mistake.)
Even the resulting closely-knitted federation after 1792 flopped when pushed hard enough, and a round of further political consolidation was deemed necessary.
Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)still appears to be relatively socially & politically & economically healthy...
Sure, on a much smaller scale.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)
And they're certainly linguistically and culturally diverse, if not racially.
Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)But, yeah. That's localism (tribalism) for you.
Respect needs to be mutual.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)immigration or racial diversity...OOOHHHH, NOOOO!
Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)(&speak well enough the relevantlanguage(s) )
Moi, en français (in French parts) Spanish works where they speak Italian. English is fine in German-speaking lands (it's a Germanic language (with lots of Latin (& even Arabic, like the Spanish) influences)).
What's new?
Edit: ¿Did you read Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose"? - That medieval hodge-podge of cultures/languages so well described!
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)There's a real love/hate thing going on between them and the French, even the French-speaking ones.
They're seen as rule-wielding, regulation-ignoring hypocrites.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)Charles Flazier's "Cold Mountain" is another one that must be read, before, preferably, watching the movie.
Same applies to Cormac McCarthy's "No Country For Old Men"... amongst many others. Hollowood scriptwriters... well, you know.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)Not 'Old Men', though.
Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)Helps us understand the Yanks.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)and my former borrowing source has long since disappeared.
French public libraries are sadly lacking on their 'foreign language' shelves.
Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)(The loss of public libraries, anytime, everywhere, is a cultural tragedy of the first order).
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain.
It will be interesting to see what happens to the other three.
rogerashton
(3,920 posts)Belgium, Ireland, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain
"Pigs" is demeaning. and too short. and ambiguous: which i? Several are doing a bit better, actually, (Belgium even has a government, I believe) but with the recession this crisis is likely to create, any and all could go back into the tank.
Igel
(35,320 posts)PIIGS. Ireland.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)describe the countries I listed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIGS_(economics)
WDIM
(1,662 posts)Any debt held by the banksters amd billionaires is illegitmate and should be defaulted on! The people are waking up and refusing to be extorted by this world wide criminal organization. The super wealthy have taken enough already it is time for the people to demand it back!
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)And why is it scary?
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)For millions of us working class Europeans, who survive month to month on the euro-economy, who are paid minimum wage salaries or receive fixed-income pensions in euros, this is very worrying.
Egging on class-warfare battles from a safe distance makes many of us very uncomfortable. We stand to lose the most--we, the Little People.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026943855#post2
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)The Euro will survive, it has been very strong lately...have you seen the interest rates on government bonds for Italy and Spain lately from what they were only a year ago when it was all gloom and doom also? But that stability was bought with massive austerity paid for by the little people.
Stability for the banks lending money for sovereign use, I am not so sure how the little people of Spain and Italy are liking it.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)the 'contagion' of financial meltdown?
You can dissent all you like. Unless you've personally got some skin in the game, excuse me for not taking you seriously.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)Don't most investors prefer an independent analysis from someone with no money at stake?
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)It's NOT a question of where to park my millions, for chrissake.
It's a question of buying food and paying the rent...
You don't seem to grasp that if the euro tanks,WE TANK--we, the Little People and our meager purchasing power.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)This is what I mean:
"The referendum was, of course, a rejection of an austerity programme that has unleashed what is commonly described in Greece as a humanitarian crisis. Since Lehman Brothers crashed in 2008, austerity has always relied on the displacement of blame from elites to elsewhere. It was Goldman Sachs who helped the then Greek government to cook the country’s books to win entry into the euro. It was German and French banks who profitably and recklessly lent to Greece, just as US banks disastrously showered subprime mortgages on low-paid Americans. It was Germany who benefited from being able to export its consumer goods to peripheral European countries such as Greece."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016126698
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)fraudulent accession to euro-zone membership, BUT it's me and my fellow working class Europeans who will take the hit.
It's OUR purchasing power that will tank and our standard of living with it.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)you to trust them now.....Syriza said NO, the Greek little people elected Tspiras and just now elected him again to keep on saying NO.
The current Greek government and people are on your side, is the point I guess I am trying to inelegantly make.
Apologies if I offended, I enjoy your posts.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)with all of these firebrands advocating for "TEAR DOWN THE SYSTEM ...DESTROY! DESTROY!"
Who can say...Tspiras' heart may be in the right place; maybe he WANTS to put Greece on the track to financial probity, but will the people who said 'NO' allow him to?
Will the people (all classes included), who enjoy the many advantages of tax-evasion and benefit-fraud, give up their bad habits?
Time will tell...
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)Time will tell...and since this is unprecedented, who knows how it will turn out?
But there is my optimism again...this is a great social experiment being played out in real time...and what if the result is what Greece wants..shared prosperity for all in a financial world with fair rules of play?
Give it a chance. Also, I happy the experiment is not being played out for th first time in Italy or Spain.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)I'm stuck with euros--don't have a dollar to my name!
And, yes, thank heaven "it's only Greece"...with it's relatively small population and GDP compared to a Spain or an Italy.
azmom
(5,208 posts)Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)the ECB knew damned well that the Greek financial numbers were bogus, but they wanted to lend money and generate fees.
The ECB was bailed out by the EU to protect private investors. They privatized the profits and socialized the losses. Wall Street has done it for years.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)Sounds distressingly familiar...
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)in the U.S.
Here is an article from the LSE that puts the admission of Greece into historical perspective:
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2014/11/25/the-argument-that-greece-was-granted-eec-accession-prematurely-ignores-the-historical-context-in-which-the-decision-was-made/
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)“The developing world loses a trillion dollars a year to tax evasion and corruption that’s also described as illicit financial flows,” LeCompte says. “Debts and the loss of tax revenue are the flip side of the same coin. Right now for every $10 a developing country gets in so called development aid they loose $150 in debt repayment, tax evasion and the cost of corruption.”
“As many as 80 of the member nations of the almost 200 that are members of the International Monetary Fund are running off-shore tax havens that rely on a substantial amount of secrecy and non-transparency,” says James Henry, a senior fellow with Columbia University’s Center for Sustainable International Investment.
Henry says that Greece’s government got stonewalled by European bankers when they tried to get an accounting for the 100 billion euros stashed by its wealthiest citizens in Swiss bank accounts to avoid greek taxes. “The corruption they are always talking about in Greece,” says Henry, ”is totally enabled by this network of tax havens and institutions that profit off that corruption.” He adds that the arrest this spring of former IMF chief Rodriguez Rato on income tax evasion and money laundering charges by Spanish authorities is a sign that the IMF itself is part of the problem. (Rato, who preceded the disgraced Dominique Strauss-Kahn at the helm of the IMF, served as the finance minister of Spain in the conservative government of Jose Marie Aznar.)
I don't know what the Greek tax rates are, but I am betting that whatever it is, applied to $100 billion euros would sure as hell help the financial crisis.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)I vote this the understatement of the day.
Darb
(2,807 posts)Kelvin, don't you know that this is all a spending problem? It has nothing to do with revenue. It's all the lazy greeks milking the government teat. All liberal ideas gone wrong. It has nothing to do with voodoo economics, financial magic fairy dust gone bad, or disproportionate income rot.
Get with the program lest you know who will tell you that you have no skin in the game and should keep your opinions to yourself.
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)We all have skin in the game thanks to Wall Street and its buddy, the ECB.
At some point though, we need to smash those bank pirates into dust. If not now, when?
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)to impose it's own austerity measures which was to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy. The ECB is protecting the wealthy at the cost of murdering the Greek economy.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)How was it that Hollande was able to do exactly that in France? His notorious "impôt de solidarité sur la fortune"...
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)the ECB is extending credit to prop up the liquidity of banks in Bulgaria, a NON-EU member, but refusing to provide liquidity to Greek banks, an EU member.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/eu-approves-bulgarian-bank-aid-1404117901
Aerows
(39,961 posts)many of us, myself included, were attempting to illuminate you on the underpinnings of how this happened.
But, of course, we were idiots that were grave dancing (despite the fact that I happen to be an American living in America) and have seen this crap play out several times with the criminals *always* being cast as the people that suffered the worst, while they are the very ones that profited and are bailed out - socialized losses, privatized profits.
It's nothing new to the US. We already know how this is going to play out because we have lived it.
That's not I read.
They refused to consider those tax measures as meeting their requirements for further loans.
"How about we meet your conditions by doing this?"
"No, that doesn't meet our conditions" =/= "No, we are not going to let you do that."
When push came to shove, there was ambiguity about who made the proposal, how serious the proposal was, whether it was explicit enough to even meet the conditions demanded. But by then the press had moved on to something else.
Sometimes you want cutting edge, up to the minute news: The early bird gets the worm.
Sometimes you want to hang back and consider how the story changes as the first reports turn out to be biased, spun, or incomplete: The second mouse gets the cheese.
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)The IMF, in particular, insisted that Greece cut its pensions by 1 percent of gross domestic product, and Greece responded that it was willing to cut them only half as much and make up the difference with higher taxes on businesses. When they couldn't come to an agreement, Tsipras called for the vote.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/05/as-greece-votes-heres-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-nations-crisis/
jwirr
(39,215 posts)up to take the fall from the beginning. The banks had nothing to lose as long as they could push austerity down the throats of the little people. The banks could make risky loans all they wanted. And this is not happening just in Greece - they are just closer to the end game.
We can see this at work in almost every country in the world - cut the "safety net" to pay for the bailout or the bail-in or the MIC. Austerity for everyone in the world but the banks and the corporations and the large stockholders who own them.
Iceland understood this from the beginning and act on it. Greece has now taken a step back but that is not going to save the little people because as I said they have been set up from the first. Just as the little people in the entire world have.
In my opinion there is a real blowback going on in the world today but we all need to act or it will fail. The goal of the blowback is to curtail the power of the banks and the corporations who have been working for this for decades beginning in South America and continuing from there. At first I did not see the EU as part of this I thought that they really were different but no more. They also are set up to serve only the goal to power. There is nothing in their goals that serves the needs of the poorer countries not the poor people of those countries. If reality does not fit their goals they act to take the country over and eliminate even more of the power of the little people.
The poster you have been talking with has every right to be afraid of what is going to happen to people in this game the economic giants are playing with the lives of the people in Greece. The only people who do not have to worry is the 1% of the world who own the banks and corporations.
But I do like the fact that Greece voted no and that the other countries in EU are upset about the way that this has been handled, and that Iceland had enough sense to say no immediately, and that the countries in South America had enough sense to throw the criminals out, and that in America we are looking very seriously at Bernie, and that so many nations are trying to fight the trade deals that are designed to give more power to the top. All of these actions are asking for the same thing. Give the power back to the people - all the people.
And for those of us who are the little people - yes we are going to suffer. But we will suffer either way. Either the powers that be will hold us in austerity for God only knows how long, maybe forever or we will rebel and fight back. It looks to me like the world is going to chose to fight back. Either way we are going to suffer if we are on the bottom.
And like the poster you were talking about I have a great deal to lose: Social Security , medical assistance for both myself and my severely disabled daughter, food stamps, etc. I am already homeless living in a small room in a relatives home. But I am fighting for my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren - I do not think we can afford to not fight back.
We must fight back.
Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)In the current 'warlord' neo-feudalist all-but-unregulated neolib capitalist social environment?
Like whom, for example, who isn't looking to turn a simplistic economic profit and who isn't afraid of losing their jobs and/or their small private/public business?
I prefer to perform my own analysis, and act accordingly.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)The policies of the World Bank and the policies of the IMF are going to be unleashed once the TPP in unfolded.
Already in the USA, banks do not loan out money to anyone but the One Percent, except for going to school and for buying a brand new car. Small businesses must turn to relatives, private funding, or exorbitant rates through utilizing their credit cards.
Beyond the TPP measures, there is the fact that computer kiosks and robot service stations are going to replace some 275 million workers across the globe, over the next five years.
Of course, the economic experts tell us that "these are jobs we do not want to work." But many people in prior generations spent their lifetimes working jobs they didn't really want to work, but which enabled them to have a roof over their heads (a roof they held title to) while establishing college funds for their offspring.
Without jobs, exactly how does a person accomplish the "small distasteful job" of providing for oneself and for one's family?
BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)Hopefully Spain will wake up and throw off the shackles of austerity.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)Last edited Mon Jul 6, 2015, 01:51 PM - Edit history (1)
I think you'll see that this isn't quite the liberation you imagine. The Greek economy was in trouble no matter what. But quite soon Greece will be unable to pay pensions and salaries. They'll be forced to print scrip and eventually to establish a rapidly devaluing currency.
In the end, it may be what they need, but it will NOT be fun, and it's gonna look like austerity on steroids for a while.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts) Beauregard
(376 posts)Sadly, that's quite likely now.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)mismanaged the new-found mana, handing out ridiculously generous and early pensions, expecting the advantageous euro/drachma ratio to compensate for empty tax coffers and benefit drain.
Beauregard
(376 posts)And the disappointing crowds at the Olympics because people were afraid to fly after 9-11. These were factors, too, no?
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Greece is fucked either way. Turning away from austerity means they won't be fucked for 3 generations.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)And it may have been worse, since it didn't really offer any hope of a healthy economy.
But I think a lot of people of very distorted picture of what comes next. Even if some kind of deal IS struck now, there is going to be a long period of of really crappy times for ordinary Greeks. I think many think that they voted to stop austerity. But the fact is, Greece is busted. There is no money to just "stop austerity." It will take a complete restructuring of their economy, tax system, and government to get to a sustainable situation.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)go lob your molotov cocktails somewhere else.
Unless you've personally got some skin in the game, i.e. unless you subsist on a minimum-wage salary or just-get-by pension paid in euros (as I do), unless you're willing to see your purchasing power decimated by monetary meltdown, unless you are one of the millions of working class Europeans who risk losing their life's meager economies to financial collapse....
Well, like I say, take your incendiary rhetoric elsewhere.
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)If these idiots are allowed to destroy the economy by forcing the 99% to pay for the bad investments of the 1% at 100 cents on the dollar/euro, the whole house of cards comes tumbling down, WORLDWIDE.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)we are well and truly screwed.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)
brentspeak
(18,290 posts)who created and then exacerbated the situation in the first place. Greece's massive debt has 99% to do with corrupt backroom deals with Wall Street to hide the nature of Greece's original debt and about 1% to do with your obsession with Greek retirement ages.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)working-class Europeans, do NOT want to see political turmoil and monetary collapse send the euro plummeting into the abyss, along with our meager life's economies?
The fact that nihilist, anarchical rhetoric is NOT the answer.
That "DESTROY THE SYSTEM" slogans are a dangerous, infantile and foolhardy indulgence for those who look on from relative financial safety?
Well, I'll just call round to the ECB post haste for an appointment, in order to make my views known...
enlightenment
(8,830 posts)have basically told people to STFU because they aren't European and have no "skin" in the game. I'm a bit confused by this attitude, since you are posting on a US political discussion board and frequently opine about topics that, by your own criteria, are none of your business since you have no "skin" (no dollars, consider yourself European, etc).
What exactly do you think people on DU - most of whom are US citizens living in the US - are going to do? Allow you to use DU as a personal platform for your personal opinion, without so much as a whisper?
Honestly, get over yourself. This is a discussion board, not your personal blog.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)in my vernacular.
Secondly, I DO have skin in the American game by extension, in that I still have family over there and I'm still required to travel there occasionally.
And, thirdly, I've already answered similar recriminations here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141137599#post58
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141137599#post65
enlightenment
(8,830 posts)Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)Remember the financial crisis of 2008? There are still things to sort out, suspicious things. And there is even a longer timeline of suspicious sovereign debt unloaded on the poorer nations of Europe.
All Greece, Spain etc. are saying, as sovereign nations mandated by their voters; Sirs and Madames: we would request the pleasure of your company to parle, the only agenda is to calculate exactly how much of our sovereign debt IS illegal, get it cancelled, and negotiate terms of repayment of legitimate sovereign debt.
For the Greek government, clearly enough, their voters are overwhelming demanding Truth and Reconciliation....and recalculation.
............
The nerve......
Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)In international law, odious debt, also known as illegitimate debt, is a legal theory that holds that the national debt incurred by a regime for purposes that do not serve the best interests of the nation, should not be enforceable.
Odious debt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odious_debt
kiva
(4,373 posts)lives in Europe, is paid in Euros, has any business expressing a point of view. If we all adopted that attitude, we'd tell you to stop posting about American issues on his board unless you are working in American and being paid in dollars...so maybe consider that you can't have it both ways.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)comment on American issues, having grown up there, done my studies there and begun my career there.
Can you say the same about Europe and the euro?
kiva
(4,373 posts)You said:
Well, like I say, take your incendiary rhetoric elsewhere.
I repeat, if you feel this way then you have no business commenting about American issues because you don't have skin in the game and aren't subsisting on minimum wage in dollars.
Or you could, you know, accept that other people may have perfectly valid viewpoints even if they aren't living in France.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)for "DESTROY THE SYSTEM", there's a world of difference, IMO.
kiva
(4,373 posts)is it OK for them to express an opinion even if they aren't getting paid the minimum wage in euros?
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)
It's simplistic, inflammatory and nihilistic rhetoric I take issue with, not reasoned, informed comment.
See my exchange with Kelvin Mace upthread.
kiva
(4,373 posts)it's not about the rhetoric, it's about the idea that no one who hasn't lived your life should have an opinion about the topic...and if that was the standard, there would be no discussion forums.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)
harun
(11,348 posts)Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)surmise, not so much.
Darb
(2,807 posts)Grind away but know this, many here have little faith in austerity as a fix to any economic recession/depression, myself included. Simply because cutting government spending takes money out of the economy and therefore makes it smaller...ie...shrinks it more...ie...reverse snowball effect....ie...less revenue to tackle this debt problem. Irrespective of how Greece got into this situation, hurting the little guy to fix it is anathema to what many believe this board is all about.
Am I to understand that you are in Greece? If so then perhaps you could tell us why the Greeks voted "no".
Also try to digest this, posting over and over regarding this event makes some of us think impure thoughts about your motives. At which time we will delicately dance around certain terms and phrases lest we be hit with "alerts" by a small, diligent minority of like-thinkers.
Have a nice day.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)a fixed-income pension pegged to the euro's yearly fluctuations.
If you consider that anxiety about my working-class purchasing power, my ability to put food in my fridge and my capacity to keep an inflation-pegged rented roof over my head are 'grinding an axe', then yeah, I suppose you could say that an axe is being ground.
You have a good day now, too.
Darb
(2,807 posts)You don't seem to have much sympathy for those downtrodden Greeks though.
You are going to a great deal of trouble, posting and replying so much, seemingly to protect your small piece of a crooked pie. As long as everyone acts in a similar fashion, the Finance Gods, living on merely hundreds of millions per annum will be able to squeak by un-accosted. The future is safe for modern day pirates.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)And, have first-hand experience of the corruption that's endemic to Greek society. (Don't forget, they were part of the rotten-to-the-core Ottoman Empire for centuries, and have never really thrown off that unfortunate legacy.)
Need an official document signed? Want official permission for something? Show me the money...
Bribery and 'under-the-tables' are a way of life.
Tax-evasion and benefit-fraud are an art form.
And, it's not just me, but millions of Europeans who are waking up today much less sure of their futures today than they were yesterday. I speak in the first person for convenience.
WDIM
(1,662 posts)Now is the time for the people of the world to reject the debt held by their slave masters and say no more! You have taken enough! No more!
Corrupt systems will always collapse. They should of collapsed in 2008 but the rich monied interest stole from the people and bailed out the rich. But they cannot do it again and the end to their corruption is near.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)Yeah, DESTROY...ANNIHILATE!!111!!1111!!!!!
