New EU deal for Greece : totally unacceptable

Before you say ``Greece deserves this``... just imagine if it were your country... (because it'll soon will be)

Summary Of Greek Reform "Pledges"

TROIKA DRAFT GREEK ACCORD SAYS 2012 GDP TO SHRINK AS MUCH AS 5%

That should help them... increase their debt to GDP ratio? How is that good? Ah yes, it's good for the banksters... and if they say 5%, you bet it's gonna be 2-3 times that. ZH says 15-25%.

GREECE TO CUT MEDICINE SPENDING TO 1.5% OF GDP FROM 1.9% OF GDP

Eugenics, of course. Death panels enforced trough economic means. This is coming here too. (Canada included)

GREECE PLEDGES TO MERGE ALL AUXILIARY PENSION FUNDS

I wonder if that means private pension funds too... and as ZH points out, the pension funds (heavily invested in Greek bonds) are gonna be ZERO once Greece defaults... even now, it's probably short a whole lot from what it was a few years ago.

GREECE TO PLEDGE 20% CUT IN MINIMUM WAGE IN TROIKA DRAFT

Yeah... let's hit the poor even more, that's gonna help things... if you think the Greek will take it... if you think that YOU would take it... think again.

TROIKA DRAFT GREEK ACCORD RENEWS PLEDGE TO CUT 150,000 EMPLOYEE - or the US equivalent of nearly 5 million workers...

That sure is gonna help the ``recovery``...

Recovery?

TROIKA DRAFT GREEK ACCORD SEES RETURN TO GROWTH IN 2013

Ridiculous.

add your first new born and we have ourselfs a deal, maybe an arm and a leg?.

this is not going to end well

reply to post by Vitchilo


Begs the question...if we have the ability to create systems of governance or organization, if we have the ability to alter them, then why in the flipping hell do we accept things as they are sometimes, and just let the systems we create totally bone us, instead of putting just, i don't know, A LITTLE BIT OF EFFORT into optimizing, altering, or creating a new system? It's really not that hard, the only reason it may seem so is because the populace on a grand scale has been deluded into thinking we're hopelessly screwed, and so here we are as people, as politicians, as human beings, accepting these shadowy forms of sacrifice.



Check and mate.

Did greece accept that crap?

Originally posted by FraternitasSaturni
Did greece accept that crap?

Not yet... thankfully.

If the corrupt political leadership does so, the army needs to arrest them and declare new elections.

reply to post by FraternitasSaturni

The people are not going to accept that. Yesterday the Greeks took to the streets, burned the German flag and said filthy things about them. The more this goes on it seems that if Greece wants to be their own country then they need to break from the Euro and fix their economy themselves.

More details from someone on ZH...

cuts in the minimum wage~22% and 35% for younger workers

cancelling of holiday bonuses for 2012-2013

automatic transformation of employment contracts from limited time to indefinite (allowing for easier layoffs)

right of an employer to switch full time employment to part time

up to 2012H1 sale of Water/Natural Gas company/ OPAP(ex state monopoly)

at least 150.000 less public workers up to 2015

Deeper cuts in pensions

The 3 party leaders agreed on everything except the pensions. Talks will continue overnight to be able to reach a decision before tomorrow's EUG meeting.

So basically the political leadership is willing to betray the people.

This is actually great for Greece, but I know how it can be even better: we can offset the loss of income for all those poor people by giving them the option to sell their babies to be eaten by the rich!! Jonathan Swift came up with this idea a couple hundred years ago in Ireland (he outlined the process in A Modest Proposal) and honestly it makes a lot of sense. They're already metaphorically devouring us, why not go the whole 9 yards (or what is it over there, meters?) and eat us whole?

The bit about cutting the minimum wage by 20% stinks the most. (Despite mainstream economic ideology) the fact is that when the minium wage was introduced in Britain growth went up, Australia has the equivalent of ten pounds an hour and their economy is doing just fine, and China (a country run by engineers and people who really know their economic business) has just increased by 13%, whilst before they did so by 21%.
There are limits to how good a minimum wage is, but basically it makes sense it helps the economy; as most (modern) economies are driven by consumer spending, and it’s universally true that the poorer you are the more of your income you spend.

So this reduction of the Greek minimum wage is manmade poverty, just like Stalin once created a manmade famine. Why the moronic Greek people haven’t…
A: Burnt their cabinet in the streets already
B: Aren’t burning the real enemy (the EU flag) rather than the German one, is beyond me.

Why do lenders care about the Greek minimum wage, when it's paid for almost entirely by the private sector? The fact they demand it, to receive other peoples money (principally from the unwilling German public) leant to them by politicians in the pay roll of the people who caused the Greek crisis; just confirms a wider agenda is in motion.

reply to post by Vitchilo

No deal yet. Apparently the governing coalition refused to agree on "one last issue"... the terms of their own pension cuts LOL.

Finance Minister Venizelos already left Greece heading for the special meeting of european Finance Mínisters in Brussels this evening.

I just can't believe this nonesense is still going on.

Originally posted by AuntB
reply to post by FraternitasSaturni

 

Yesterday the Greeks took to the streets, burned the German flag and said filthy things about them.

This was actually a smart move... probably the best way to upset German tax payers.

Greece has until the middle of Feb to finalize this deal, it has until the end of March to receive it's bailout to pay its 14bn euro debt or default, and the Greek elections are expected to begin in April.

My money says Greece is OUT!

I really don’t understand some of the comments on here.
The people of Greece got what they wanted from their politicians for decades. Lots of freebies with little to no work.

Retirement in their 50’s?
Free healthcare.
37 Paid days off per year. Not including the weekends.
They had a wage freeze for a few years so to increase their pay added a 13th monthly paycheck.

So when it comes time to pay up you feel the government is throwing them under the bus????
What is the government supposed to do? If the bailout checks stop the entire system will lock up.
Greece has been living on a sugar high for many years. Now they have economic diabetes and have to take their medicine.

For Germany to keep supporting them the way they have is akin to giving that deadbeat brother inlaw a monthly check. They will never get it back.

From the Athens paper- here is the agreement presented but as the article says, some pages are missing. The leaders decided and the people were left out.

The troika agreement: the text

Originally posted by samkent
I really don’t understand some of the comments on here.
The people of Greece got what they wanted from their politicians for decades. Lots of freebies with little to no work.

Retirement in their 50’s?
Free healthcare.
37 Paid days off per year. Not including the weekends.
They had a wage freeze for a few years so to increase their pay added a 13th monthly paycheck.

So when it comes time to pay up you feel the government is throwing them under the bus????
What is the government supposed to do? If the bailout checks stop the entire system will lock up.
Greece has been living on a sugar high for many years. Now they have economic diabetes and have to take their medicine.

For Germany to keep supporting them the way they have is akin to giving that deadbeat brother inlaw a monthly check. They will never get it back.

The people of Greece not only retire much earlier, they also retire on double in retire benefits compared to the US. My problem with this is that the "people" of Greece just lost their freedoms. In my mind they are now a lap dog to Germany. Do I think the Greece issues are going to be solved? NO! Do I think they need a total recalibration of their economic system? Yes! I think that Greece and it's economic woes are not going to be solved by pouring money into something that is broke.

Originally posted by samkent
Greece has been living on a sugar high for many years. Now they have economic diabetes and have to take their medicine.

I agree about the "sugar high"-part but... these excessively harsh austerity measures are the type of "medicine" that will kill the patient.

If you extract money out of an already tanking economy and put the economical backbone (small/medium business) under a disproportionate level of strain, it will eventually die.

This is not helping anyone. It won't create demand or growth, restrict corruption or restructurize their bureaucracy... it doesn't solve the problem.

reply to post by AuntB


They have to default to have a chance. The problem is that i don't think they realise that a default would leave them in almost the same position - recovery would still be around 15 to 20 years to get back to pre financial crisis levels.

And before anyone tries to mention Iceland, it is a totally different situation. And, for the record, despite the success Iceland had, standards of living are still 2 to 3 times lower than before they kicked out the banksters - and that is in a country that was in far far better position that Greece is in.

At the end of the day, they are having to pay the costs of decades of living way beyond their means. The rest of the western world is praying they keep plugging along as they all face exactly the same problems - hence the desperate, scrambled austerity measures left, right and centre. Basically, the world is desperate to avoid following suit.

I also definitely feel for Germany - they have been made to pay for bailouts because of European guilt over past crimes (ie World Wars). What that has to do with modern Germany is beyond me - only a tiny percentage of the population today were alive then. Germany should sack off France and concentrate on a new Union of its' own choosing.

I wonder where they would be if they did split off.
How far would their taxes go to pay for retirement and governement employees?

I would expect it would be slightly better than the bailout conditions, since Germany expects to be repaid. But no one would loan to them for many years.

I feel that this agreement is more tailored to the saving the Euro and not the welfare of the Greek people. If Greece defaults it could set off a chain reaction across the Eurozone and this is something that ‘they’ want avoided. Because the world’s economy is so interlinked these leaders seem to be trying to save something without truly fixing the problem. Basically it is a band aid when an amputation is needed. When I say recalibration, I mean they have to hit rock bottom, they have to default only then can they truly rebuild their economy.

Mr Nigel Farage on Greece, and sticking it to Van Rompuy & Barroso