F@#$king Greece!

[Pepsi]

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This little piece of shit (lovely place for vacation apparently) country is going to bring down the world economy?  Bastards!

[lucy]

It really isn't Greece's fault. It is the fault of the institutions that have played the numbers game with risky loans, derivatives, shady financial practices, etc....

[Mornac]

I've said from the beginning that the EU was a disaster waiting to happen for everyone involved. Next time, maybe they'll listen to me before getting mixed up in thinly veiled commie syncretist plots (or "plans" as johnhp prefers).

[dustup]

I've said from the beginning that the EU was a disaster waiting to happen for everyone involved. Next time, maybe they'll listen to me before getting mixed up in thinly veiled commie syncretist plots (or "plans" as johnhp prefers).

You are a coward son.

He loves to not know......

[vel]

It really isn't Greece's fault. It is the fault of the institutions that have played the numbers game with risky loans, derivatives, shady financial practices, etc....

I agree with you for once. Good for you to pick this out, Lucy. It's just another variation on the tired "conservative" blame it on the have nots meme. I am not surprised that Mornac would fall for it hook, line, and sinker.

This is a good a

The Greek labor force, comprising 5 million souls, works the second highest number of hours per year on average among countries in the Organization for Economic Development (OECD), right after South Korea. Greeks work 42 hours per week, while the industrious Germans toil just 36.

The average Greek worker earns a bit over $1,000 a month. Private sector employees are the most underpaid in the EU. Even before the harsh austerity measures imposed by the EU and the IMF, the Greeks had already cut the real average wages in the private sector to 1984 levels. This week the Greek parliament is expected to vote on measures that would place 30,000 public sector workers in a “labor reserve” at slashed pay – up to 40 percent.

Greeks retire a bit later than the European average. And the average pension, $990, is less than that of Ireland, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Thirty percent of the labor force works with zero Social Security or protections, while in the rest of the EU only 5-10 percent of workers are in this precarious situation.

So much for the myth of the overpaid, lazy Greek.

The reality is simple, though rarely admitted – except maybe by Yiannis, who seems to know exactly what’s happening. The “bailout" of Greece is really a bailout of big European banks. A game of smoke and mirrors leads us to think that Greek indolence led to financial ruin. The Greeks have done some things wrong, to be sure. But it was a dangerous mix of stupid economic theories and high-flying finance, fueled by a corrupt government, that exploded the economy. If all this sounds sickeningly familiar, it should. We’re witnessing Round 2 of the Great Global Shakedown by the banks.

Much more here

[ivanm]

This little piece of shit (lovely place for vacation apparently) country is going to bring down the world economy?  Bastards!

You can blame your socialist buddies for that.  Take it as a lesson on what a bunch of communists can do to a country.

[SufferedMoreThanJesus]

This is what happens to a country renowned for sodomy.

Ain't so much fun when YOU'RE the one getting butt fucked; huh?

[dustup]

Corzine Firm’s Bankruptcy Reminds Us Dems Repealed Glass-Steagall, Opened Derivative Market
by Chriss W. Street

The bankruptcy of MF Global demonstrates that the 1% of crony capitalists in America are now subject to the same risks of economic losses as the other 99% of us. Led by former Goldman Sachs Chairman Jon Corzine, MF Global engaged in speculating on the bonds of Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain (PIGS) with shareholder money; they then tried to hedge their bets with derivatives called Credit Default Swaps (CDS). The firm relied on Corzine’s inside expectation that crony politicians in Germany and France would stick taxpayers with the cost of bailing-out bondholders, like MF Global. The bet buckled when voters rebelled and demanded bondholders suffer losses. Once subject to capitalist risks, MF Global collapsed.

Jon Corzine made most of his fortune from developing intimate relationships with politicians and government officials. As Chairman of Goldman Sachs, in 1999 he led the effort to convince the Clinton Administration and Congress to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. The Act banned commercial banks that receive insurance from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) from engaging in speculation and trading in securities. Historians have blamed the start of the Great Depression on massive leveraged speculation by banks in the stock and bond bubbles of the “Roaring Twenties.” Many of the victims of the 1929 crash turned out to be the proverbial “widows and orphans” whose small deposits were wiped-out when trading losses forced their savings institution into bankruptcy.

Read More Here: http://biggovernment.com/cstreet/2011/11/02/corzine-firms-bankruptcy-reminds-us-dems-repealed-glass-steagall-opened-derivative-market/

[ivanm]

I think that the biggest problem with Greece is that its soil cannot support a gainful agricultural economy, and the rest seems to be rocks. 

As to the repeal of the act that protected small savers, that was indeed a mistake. If large investment banks want to take stupid risks then they should be strictly off the tit.  As a small investor I know that if my venture go south then I have no one to blame but myself and that there is no bailout on the way.
That is the way it should be, and if I didn't like the terms then I wouldn't play.