Posted on 11/08/2012 9:22:42 PM PST by bruinbirdman
Greek unemployment rose to 25.4pc in August. Youth unemployment rose to 58pc.
Under the official forecast, the economy will contract by a further 4.5pc next year, so it fair to assume that lots more people are going to lose their jobs. It is certainly not going to improve in any meaningful way for years to come.
This is what happens when you lock into the wrong currency and block the escape routes – or join a "burning building with no exits" in the words of William Hague.
Even if Greeks comply with all demands, public debt will reach 179pc of GDP next year. Perhaps there will be some sort of formula to cut debt service costs by shaving 50 basis points off interest on rescue loans, and persuading the ECB to forgo "profits" on its estimated €40 billion holdings of Greek bonds (though unrealised profits would seem be courting fate).
Yet it is hard to see how the salary and pension cuts, etc, pushed through the Greek parliament last night with enormous difficulty can do any more than buy a few months’ delay. The protests on Wednesday bordered on urban guerrilla warfare. It will not take much to cross that line.
Even if the EMU machine succeeds in keeping Greece in the system, is this any longer a remotely desirable goal? Has it not become a vicious and immoral policy in itself?
I agree with the IFO Institute’s Hans-Werner Sinn that upholding euro membership has by now become an act of cruelty. It not being done in the interests of Greeks. It is being done for the Project, by enforcers of the Project. Only by breaking free can Greece restore a minimum of economic vibrancy and national dignity.
Everything we know from labour studies is that the
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
They’ll be stopped by a civil war. Any day now I expect to see images on my T.V. of Golden Dawn kicking in the doors of parliament, beating people to death. Same in Hungary. It’s coming up on chaos-day, and somehow, I wish I was in the thick of it all. It would be more interesting and monumental to be at the fall of a one-party state into anarchy, rather than here, where the one-party state is being ushered in.
Perhaps only from anarchy can a stronger democracy and new constitution of the people be formed.
I don’t care about Greece, we got our own problems and we shouldn’t waste our time, effort and money to save a country that could give a crap about us. Same with Italy, Spain, Portugal. The ONLY country we should care about over in that part of the world is Israel.
I see dead people and they don’t know they’re dead.
The only country I care about is this one.
Relatives came from Italy early 1900’s , Ireland early 1800’s, and Denmark 1750’s.
Could care less about any of them.
Well mine came over from Germany in 1739, but I have been watered down so much I am truly an American Heinz 57. That is the main reason I cannot get a handle on all the different heritage politics. Laaaatino, Aaaaaasian, Wiiiimen, Bababablack, sheese, we are all in a sinking boat and we are arguing on who will plug the hole with their finger.
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