Greece is socialism’s future, a country split between those getting ludicrous government benefits and those who don’t want to pay for them.
Greece is socialism’s future, a country split between those getting ludicrous government benefits and those who don’t want to pay for them.
The Daily Mail probes the rift:
…the average salary on Greece’s railways is $95617 US… treble the earnings of the average private sector employee [in the UK].
Poor, impoverished Greeks enjoying a meager meal alongside their yachts
[The overground rail network’s] annual income is only $127.4m US from ticket sales, the wage bill is more than $796.8m US a year — prompting one Greek politician to famously remark that it would be cheaper to put all the commuters into private taxis.
Ridiculously, Greek pastry chefs, radio announcers, hairdressers and masseurs in steam baths are among more than 600 professions allowed to retire at 50 (with a state pension of 95 per cent of their last working year’s earnings) — on account of the ‘arduous and perilous’ nature of their work.
Mattress testers? They probably retire at 45.
If there were any taxpayers, they’d be complaining.
….only 5,000 people in a country of 12 million admit to earning more than $143000 US a year — a salary that would not be enough to buy a garden shed in [the wealthy suburb of] Kifissia.
Manipulating a corrupt tax system, many of the residents simply say that they earn below the basic tax threshold of around $15900 US a year, even though they own boats, second homes on Greek islands and properties overseas.
And, should the taxman rumble this common ruse, it can be dealt with using a ‘fakelaki’ — an envelope stuffed with cash.
Don’t worry about the Greeks, though. Since our economy is in such outstanding condition, President Obama has pledged that we will help Greece out with its “crisis.”
Obama just offered to borrow communist money we’re unable to repay to give to socialists who are unwilling to repay it.
While the media has busied itself with a Weiner roast, President Obama has quietly been focusing laser-like on the debt crisis. Not ours, the one in Greece.
While not one of the 57 states Obama needs for re-election in 2012, Greece is a “headwind” making his failing economic policies fail.
First official photo of the next generation trying to dig themselves out of the hole we dug for them
CNBC has the story:
President Barack Obama on Tuesday urged European countries and bondholders to prevent a “disastrous” default by Greece and pledged U.S. support to help tackle the country’s debt crisis.
Mr. Obama was quoted, “… we have pledged to cooperate fully in working through these issues, both on a bilateral basis but also through international and financial institutions like the IMF.”
Too many nuances there for our taste. Daniel J. Mitchell translates:
The story doesn’t have much detail, but it appears that Obama is willing to brutalize American taxpayers directly (which is what he means by “on a bilateral basis”) and indirectly (i.e., the reference to “international and financial institutions like the IMF”).
Brutalized by the IMF and we’re not even hotel maids. The 48% of us who pay taxes are used to that by now. And the money’s going for a good cause, right?
Another bailout will be a case of throwing good money after bad. And it will exacerbate the.economic damage by delaying the economic reforms that are needed to put Greece’s economy in better shape.
… the other insolvent European welfare states will look at what’s happening in Greece and conclude that they also can avoid necessary reforms and wait for handouts from American and German taxpayers.
Damn, we love this guy. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) guested on Up Front with Mike Gousha this weekend. Here’s what he had to say about the Greek meltdown and the ongoing European financial crisis.
Damn, we love this guy.
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) guested on Up Front with Mike Gousha this weekend. Here’s what he had to say about the Greek meltdown and the ongoing European financial crisis:
“I am enormously concerned. First of all, Greek contagion can spread to some of these other countries like you said. What this basically is… It is so ironic coming from the cradle of Western Civilization. What we are seeing is the failure of European socialism and social welfare states. What is basically happening here is this sovereign debt crisis could come over and spread to us. We’ve got to make sure we put in the right kind of fiscal controls, the right kind of balancing to prevent this from happening. Because what’s happening is the markets are questioning the viablility of sovereign debt. The markets are questioning whether or not governments are going to be able to live up to all the promises and debt that they have racked up… Sooner or later you run out of spending other people’s money with welfare states.”
The Greek economy is a joke. Unfortunately, the joke’s on hard-working German taxpayers who now find themselves forced to bail out their lazy-ass EuroZone neighbors.
The Greeks will laugh and dance while the German taxpayers work and sweat.
The Greek economy is a joke. Unfortunately, the joke’s on hard-working German taxpayers who now find themselves forced to bail out their lazy-ass EuroZone neighbors.
Reuters explains how the Hellenistic economy went to hell:
Tens of thousands of unmarried or divorced daughters of civil servants collect their dead parents’ pensions, weighing on a social security system experts say will collapse in 15 years unless it is overhauled….
While the law protects civil servants from dismissal, it allows them to retire with a pension in their 40s.
Greek pension spending is expected to rise by 12 percent of gross domestic product by 2050, according to EU Commission data. That compares with an EU average of less than 3 percent of GDP…
Labour unions foiled government attempts to sell debt-ridden Olympic Airways for decades, costing Greek taxpayers millions while employees enjoyed generous benefits—their family members could fly around the world for free… Olympic was sold in 2008, but only after the state lavishly compensated or re-hired about 4,600 employees…
The state owns 74 companies, mainly utilities and transport firms, many of which are overstaffed and loss-making, the OECD says…
Hundreds of state-appointed committees employ staff though it is not clear what they all do. Greece has a committee to manage Lake Kopais, which dried out in the 1930s…
But nearly 80 percent of Defence Ministry spending goes on administrative costs and payments of army staff.
The Greek Army? Consider that the punchline to Germany’s very expensive joke.
