Posted on 07/03/2015 8:10:40 PM PDT by Rockitz
Greece in teetering on the brink of ruin - and it is hard not to feel sympathy for the pensioners crying in the street and the mothers facing empty supermarket shelves.
Yet those reading a new book may find themselves feeling a little less compassionate towards the Greeks. It reveals an eye-popping catalogue of benefits scams and tax avoidance schemes that have robbed the public purse.
James Angelos' The Full Catastrophe: Travels among the New Greek Ruins lays bare the corruption which filtered through all levels of society - from the islanders who pretended to be blind, to the families who forgot to register their parents' death and the doctors who 'earn' just €12,000 a year - yet live in Athens' most exclusive neighbourhood.
It was the rumours of an 'island of the blind' which first bought Angelos, a journalist, to Greece in 2011.
He had heard that on Zakynthos, something like two per cent of the population were registered blind.
All was not quite how it seemed, however, and it transpired that 61 of the 680 'blind' residents were quite happily driving around the island.
In fact, an astonishing 498 of those 680 were not blind at all - or even partially sighted.
But being 'blind' had its advantages - in particular, the €724 paid in benefits once every two months, and a reduction in utility bills.
..........
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Because the question is irrelevant......the idea of collectivism was around before Marx...so what.....doens’t make a damned bit of difference. The IMF is not free market either.
Which kind of collectivism do YOU prefer, you gutless eunuch.
On a positive note, tourists will have lots more ruins to visit in Greece.
>>i”m not MSM
You’re a Faux News Wannabe.
>>until you declare what economic system you prefer,
Liar.
As I said before, the economic system I prefer is the one the Creator called out for GOVERNMENT via His 10 Commandments... before your kindred spirits tossed all their gold into the fire and started worshiping the Market Ba’als that oozed out.
>>Which kind of collectivism do YOU prefer, you gutless eunuch.
The Family Kind.
>>”first dealing with them as part of the Bush Quayle Campaign Team”
Not the Frat PUNK kind. Punk.
and how do you support your family collectivism? .....which government hand out...or do you take private charity? Or wait, maybe you sponge off rich relatives, and that’s what you mean by family collectivism.
And since you missed it, I was not part of the “frat” in the campaign team...that’s THE ENTIRE POINT.
The Ten Commandments do not speak to an economy - they speak to how you handle your personal wealth to be sure, but they are silent on how to order the affairs of men economically.
So you have not said which economic collective system you prefer. The Ten Commandments says nothing about that. Those commandments are PERSONAL, each and every one of them.
>>The IMF is not free market either.
Was Duetchesbank operating in a Free Market when it was Argent/Ameriquest’s primary warehouse lender? How exactly did the CRA regulate a German Bank?
Thus far your only example of free market is... 2000+ years old.
Got anything a little more recent on the resume?
The free market idiot is an IDEA....there are examples of it, and it is the best system.
You for some reason, with your sub 44 IQ, think that the perversions describe the market. They don’t. They are perversions.
You are a hateful pro life Marxist. Period.
>>but they are silent on how to order the affairs of men economically.
Ba’alshyte.
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
NIV
What were your market turd worshipers coveting when they were crapping 700 trillion dollars worth of derivative a$$paper into the global economic pond?
I’ll answer since you won’t: ALL OF THE ABOVE.
Covet is not an economic act...it is an act of the heart. It says nothing about the system that begat that house, or whatever.
You’re a moron.
>>The free market idiot is an IDEA
Uhuh. An IDEA that lots of folks have turned into an object of worship.
Which commandment is IDOLATRY covered in again?
>>Covet is not an economic act...it is an act of the heart.
THOU SHALT NOT STEAL ring any bells, Suuuuper Genius?
>>Covet is not an economic act..
The covetous/idolatrous work-product of Advertising and Marketing isn’t economic.
LOL. Riiiiight.
>>and how do you support your family collectivism?
My wife and I worked for 40+ years. Own our own home. Drive old cars with no loans. We don’t have any debt. We have a reasonable savings. We’ve taken responsibility for our own health and aren’t obese cash cows for the pharmacuetical industry. We raise chickens, bees, vegetables. We fish, hunt, and live frugally.
And we don’t waste our money buying books written by MSM wanabees who rode the coats tails of Shrub and Quayle into black balled irrelevance.
>>Those commandments are PERSONAL, each and every one of them.
Furthermore, the Israelites who did not like what had happened to Korah, Dathan, and Abiram (and their families) objected to Moses, and God then commanded Moses to depart from the multitude. God then smote 14,700 men with plague, as punishment for objecting to Korah’s destruction.”
How’d it work out “personally” for Korah and his followers who instigated insurrection against the Creator’s 10 commandments?
You sound like a bitter old man with no life frankly. Frugality is great, unless it’s paired with self righteousness, and then it becomes resentment or perhaps a spirit of poverty.
but you say you worked for 40 plus years, and apparently your wife had to work 40 plus years too. Well either you were working in the free market, or you were working for government which is funded by the free market.
What is remarkable about your arrogance is that the life you live is honorable, but to think you could do that without the free market providing the money for many things...is just absurd. IT’s also remarkably self centered that you think everyone should be called to live the same way. That’s not how God works.
The Commandments were given to us to apply them personally - not corporately....so any attempt of you to divert and distort and pervert simply amplifies the point that the Ten Commandments are not an economic system.
You keep bringing up examples that are not relevant to the question(s) at hand, none of which you are able to answer by the way, even though you asked most of them.
The “free market” provided the money. LOL.
No, it was my Creator who provided skills and opportunity to exercise good stewardship over them.
What’s remarkable is His ability to do so even in the context of a self-worshiping system of idolatry that’s clearly en-route (again) to the due penalties described in Romans 1:25...
Your entire “free” market exists in the context of the system of temporal world government that has existed throughout human history.
Per 2 Corinthians 4:4 — Whose domain is that, temporarily, under?
>>The Commandments were given to us to apply them personally
The consequences delivered upon Korah and his fellow corporate insurrectionists were certainly personal.
Is the body of Christ Personal, Corporate, or Both?
Sounds like your wife provided for you. But the roads and the garden implements and the vehicles and the buildings and so on that you count on are products of a system that you claim to despise. Yes, God provided, but He provided them through the free market system. The health care system, which you will need at some point, is being destroyed by government but was founded by the free market.
The free market is free will....which God gave us. Do some pervert it? YES, but that’s not an indictment of the freedom, it’s an indictment of that person. And by the way, there is nothing redeeming about any economic system outside of the free market.
But i”m curious....how about your kids? Any of those? And you must not travel - that’s not frugal - nor safe or economical in older vehicles....so you’re denying yourself so much of God’s creation.
Do you give any money away, you know, put it where your mouth is? How many foreign countries have you funded entire missions on? You may be surprised at my answer - and every dollar came through the free market system. Every single one.
I guess you think Chick Filet is evil.....being in the free market and all. And Hobby Lobby too I guess. Gee, if we could all just live off of whatever non existent system you think is superior.....
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