Forum Post: Children 'dumped in streets by Greek parents who can't afford to look after them any more'
Posted 12 years ago on Jan. 12, 2012, 6:47 a.m. EST by Scout
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Or put up for adoption, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16472310 .
Welcome to Bankster World (aka Ayn Rand World).
Don't kid yourself dignified middle class workers are in the target sites of banksters the world over. They need us to be powerless worker units to be moved here and there as they wish.
The globalists/Wall St. are destroying the American middle class as we speak.
Good points, but the bankers had nothing to do with the Greek economic fall out. It was the Greek government spending themselves into debt that did it. Its sad either way, but we need to keep our facts straight.
Ah, at least nobody any longer believes that foolish home buyers collapsed the American economy, but you liars are doing a fine job of blaming the worldwide econ collapse on debt ridden governments. Sorry. They are a symptom not a cause, or perhaps its why governments like Greece were hit first by the banking collapse.
Financier, Wall St., City of London bankster overreach has collapsed the world economy. The worst is yet to come and still the criminal banksters have not been called to account.
i understand what you are saying, but the world is not that simple as blame the bankers--and i'm not a big fan of the financial industry. For Greece and for most of Europe the governments have run out of money and can't afford to pay out all of the entitlement programs that they have. Put it this way, if everyone works for the government or relies on government welfare (and in greece it is a high percentage)who is paying the taxes and the bills? It's basic economics not some fairy tail about evil Bankers.
OK, I agree, basic economics demands that the private sector be the primary economic engine. But Greece could have continued limping along (to accept your description of the Greek economy), if they hadn't been swept up by the bigger collapse.
Look at the auto industry -- they had all kinds of problems. But their near collapse in 2008 was caused by the economic collapse, not primarily by their mistakes. (Further, imo, their bailout made sense, it was bailing out American industry.)
I do like that new Cadillac ATS :)
You must be one of the 1%. ;)
i don't think so, i just like american cars.
What an idiotic post. Sure, bad "banksters" that won't keep lending money long after it's obvious that the Greeks will never pay it back. Yeah, that's wrong of them. LOL
Greece is what happens when government borrowing finally hits the wall. Greece is what happens when it's employees run the government via their unions. Greece is what happens when rather than work, you simply borrow.
So even when a Socialist State fails - Capitalism is to blame lol? It must be nice too have your cake & eat it too. Keep it up lol!
no...it was caused by a massive social welfare state....they can (or could) retire with full benefits after age 53 in some occupations...they cannot afford to pay for the promises they've made......we're not far behind if we don't change course..........
Go away. Nobody believes a word you say. Be gone, you have no power here.
How childish of you. You should be ashamed to call yourself a human being. I believe what he has to say, and respect what he has to say. Why? Because I'm not a child. His words have power here. Your're a poor excuse for a human being.
you don't have to believe me.....check for yourself
If that were true, you'd think Norway wouldn't have a higher per capital GNP than we do, better education system, better healthcare, better quality of life, etc. I think it's fair to say ... it's more complicated than that.
Starving Greeks. The specter of capitalism.
How profoundly sad. Can't we see that we are all humans, here? We breathe the same air. We should look out for each other.
Ayn Rand was a psychopath.
Amen.
She was pissed that there was a revolution. If there hadn't been a revolution she would have maintained her status. Her entire view point centers around how she should have been at the top simply because and everyone else should be at the bottom.
i'm sure that you would know a lot about being on the bottom.
I'm sorry sausage ninja, I can't hear you over the sound of how filthy you are.
You misunderstood, i was talking about the economic bottom as you were in your comment.
Right...............
One cannot preach love to the loveless, or appeal to the heart and conscience of those who have neither.
Lloyd Bankfein would do no more than giggle over these families.
Here's a post I wrote, if interested, http://occupywallst.org/forum/from-a-recent-comment-how-profoundly-sad-cant-we-s/ (I don't know why I didn't mention it here before), regarding psychopaths.
Yes. I saw your post. I'm still thinking about it. Don't know how to respond to it. On the one hand, I think you are right. Then on the other hand, I can't give up hope that maybe we can reach these people, these humans?
"Do we walk shoulder to shoulder with mimics who share no fellow human feeling, no empathy, no conscience?" ( http://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/past-notes/ ). Yes we do and they cannot be reached human to human.
I was just talking to GypsyKing about this. Why are people so cold? Why are they so materialistic? I know you think they are sociopaths. But, why? Do you think it relates back to a lack of unconditional love in early childhood. I do. I think that is where lack of empathy and compassion has its roots. Your blog is interesting, btw.
"Do you think it relates back to a lack of unconditional love in early childhood. I do. I think that is where lack of empathy and compassion has its roots." I agree to the extent that these childhood experiences create sociopath-like behavior.
But "[w]hen one considers all the seemingly conscienceless and subtracts the attachment disordered, the narcissistically rigid, and the hideously abused and needy, there is still a core of the emotionally/morally colorblind . . ." (see source above). These are the true sociopaths, the others, faux sociopaths.
The true sociopaths act according to their nature. ( http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/01/psychopaths-caused-the-financial-crisis-and-they-will-do-it-again-and-again-unless-they-are-removed-from-power.html or quotes from same: http://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/psychopaths-caused-the-financial-crisis-and-they-will-do-it-again-and-again-unless-they-are-removed-from-power/ )
Yeah. I can see what you're saying. I've known people like this. So, you're saying identify them and remove them. I don't know that that will ever be possible in our society. How can you identify people as sociopath who probably wouldn't even go to a doctor?
Expect it's not Capitalism. They had a huge socialist state run by the workers. They made promises they couldn't keep. They were able to retire at the age of 53 with full benefits. Their people ran the country into the ground. That's why they are in debt not because of Capitalism.
Please read shadz66's post at the top of this thread. It's a good explanation of why Greece is in the position it's in.
Starving greeks. The specter of socialism. Can't we all just get along :)
Sure except for the little fact of Greece's Massive Social Programs. Odd huh, no not really. Maybe they shouldn't consider Pedophilia a disability.
Greece has a capitalist economy and if capitalism worked as well as many argue, no one should be starving.
Pedophiles are mentally ill, don't you think?
Greece's social programs bankrupted their economy. 40% of their GDP is from the Public sector. Pedophiles are not disabled and should not be paid for their "disability"
Capitalism has failed in Greece. And, I never said pedophiles should be paid. Of course not. They should be in jail. And, that costs money too.
Yeah blame Capitalism cause they weren't smart enough to manage their money. Greece failed Greece by not managing their money properly. Capitalism is the only reason you are able to get on-line today and whine about how terrible it is. It's why you are able to to get Meds when you are sick. It's why you are able to drive to work. You don't blame your pencil for misspelled words do ya????????
Capitalism works for the wealthy. It is an exploitative economic system that requires poverty to create wealth. This works on a macro level as well as a micro level. That includes among countries and within countries.
Watch this video about how unregulated capitalism has provided Americans with the so-called meds you talk about but has denied them to other parts of the world that need them:
http://video.tvguide.com/Dylan+Ratigan+Show/Big+profits+for+Big+Pharma/9074828?autoplay=true&partnerid=OVG
So Big Pharma, would have developed a drug just because they could have???? Big Pharma developed a drug to make money. They took a problem and found a fix. What is the incentive for them to develope a drug in the 1st place????
You didn't watch the whole video. Not enough time passed. Unregulated capitalism is morally bankrupt. It is an economic system that the people serve rather than vice versa. An economic system should serve the people.
Did you get to the part where the women in America have access to and are paying $50 for cream for their faces when this very cream could cure African sleeping sickness, yet it is not available there because they cannot pay $50 for it?
So now it's unregulated Capitalism. 1st you try to blanket Capitalism with a generalization. That doesn't work so now it's unregulated Capitalism. 1st you need to figure out where you stand. 2nd If ya feel so badly about it what are you doing to help these women???? Are you buy cream to send to them? Surely you can spare $50 to send some over there. Have you tried a fundraiser???? Look just because you feel bad about someone else's plight doesn't mean you can spend someone else's money. It's always so easy to point fingers at someone else and scream "look what they're not doing" Your trying to force your morality on someone else.
So, tell me, ssjkakkarotx, why are you here on the OWS forum? Why do you defend the interests of the 1%? Are you part of the 1%? If not, why do you defend their interests and not your own?
I care about the people in Africa dying of an illness that could easily be prevented and I care about the poor people right here in our country. Did you know 1 in 7 Americans are on food stamps. Are you aware that half of all jobs in this country pay less than $26,000 per year and that 22% of our children live in poverty (42% of African American children live in poverty). I'm not rich enough, man, to help them all out, though I do what I can. What do you do? You sit and defend the 1%.
There is enough wealth to go around this country and the world. We don't have to allow corporate greed to rule the roost. No one should need charity.
It's not about defending anyone's interest. It's about arguing on facts and saying what's right. If you cared to understand the reason behind the Greek crisis, you would know that their government having spending way more than they generate in revenues. That's not sustainable and it was supposed to come crashing one day. They also spent a huge amount of the Olympics itself and no country has ever made a net profit by hosting Olympics. But they still had time to mend their ways, they didn't and they got screwed.
It is sad but it's entirely the greek govt's fault.
As for poverty is America, trust me even our poor are far better than the poor in most countries.
There may or may not be enough wealth in the country, but nothing calls for a equal redistribution of wealth. Sorry. Not feasible or even advisable.
Greece is not all that much different than many other countries, including the U.S. when it comes to debt.
The guy in this video articulates it better than I ever could:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQpSq8dkzfg&feature=related
Why do you guys keep going back to the fact that our poor are far better than the poor in most countries? Income disparity, a travesty, around the world doesn't justify it in my own country.
And, no one is calling for an equal redistribution of wealth. Sorry. Never said that and you know it. We're calling for everyone to have enough, be as rich as you want, but make sure everyone has enough.
And that is why we need to reduce our debt. There are multiple factors that have contributed to it. And what was utterly despicable was the fact that Democrats and Rebuplican couldn't come to agreement on it until the 11th hour. They are putting the entire country hostage to their selfish agenda.
We agree on something. Praise the lord.
Greece didn't see it coming? Then they must be crazy. With govt spending exceeding revenues for more than a decade, how can anyone not see this coming? The Eurozone has been asking them to reduce their deficit for a long time now. Yes, they saw it coming. They simply hoped that they could forever continue to issue more debt because they had the backing of the Euro. The govt wanted to be popular by spending and spending, people like it. But they spent way too much.
And, how is this different from other countries? What nation hasn't spent too much?
thats probably because we both care for this country. goals are same, we just dont see eye to eye on the methods
Yes, but the discussion is good. I'm here to debate, not have insults hurled at me. One thing I have learned is that the more I know, the more I know you don't know. I'm always learning.
"And, how is this different from other countries? What nation hasn't spent too much?" - Spending a little more every year is alright. But there should be limits, right? Limits as percentage of GDP or Revenue.
Ideally any stable country can get away with deficit provided it's within limits. Why can it get away? Because, you don't expect stable countries to default. So they can issue debt and investors would buy it, because they know the country will be solvent.
It's interesting to look at the list of nations by debt to gdp ratios. The U.S. is not that far off from where Greece was:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt
Ah, John Perkins. while there is some truth to what he says in his book, a lot of it are lies. As for World Bank enslaving countries, I doubt if that happened with Greece. I can still understand a case where loans are made to countries with poor leadership (african countries with dictatorships or sham democracries) and using that money and influence to hoard their resources. I can still find it slightly plausible. But in case of Greece, they are a member of the EU having a well functioning leadership. In fact, getting them indebted too much would have led to a default. If I were a evil banker (and trust me sometimes the baseless allegation you guys make makes me wonder if I should get up in the morning and do a evil laugh and say "lets kill some more dolphins today with derivates" or "lets get more kids hungry in africa by buying commodity futures") I would not do that. Not with Greece.
Now, the actual data. Greece over spent, on public welfare, on salaries (far higher than comparable salaries even in US or anywhere else) and even the Olympics. That kind off profligacy will get you into trouble. sooner or later
Then we, too, are doomed. And, if you remember, we're already paying a higher interest rate on our debt thanks to the Tea Party shenanigans on August 3rd. This is complicated stuff, I'm not pretending to be an expert but certainly, as a human, I can't imagine that Greece 1. wants to be in this situation or 2. saw it coming.
Greece didn't see it coming? Then they must be crazy. With govt spending exceeding revenues for more than a decade, how can anyone not see this coming? The Eurozone has been asking them to reduce their deficit for a long time now. Yes, they saw it coming. They simply hoped that they could forever continue to issue more debt because they had the backing of the Euro. The govt wanted to be popular by spending and spending, people like it. But they spent way too much.
And that is why we need to reduce our debt. There are multiple factors that have contributed to it. And what was utterly despicable was the fact that Democrats and Rebuplican couldn't come to agreement on it until the 11th hour. They are putting the entire country hostage to their selfish agenda.
Capitalism has nothing to do with any of that, dufuss. Human ingenuity doesn't exist because of capitalism. If anything capitalism, when not extremely regulated, is a drain on human creativity and ingenuity. Why do you think we have all those anti-monopoly laws? Why do you think America is still stuck on fossil fuels? Why do you think America is trailing in education? And, by the way, the government is the reason I can get on-line today. They started the internet, genius.
Holy Shit you are dumb. I hope you don't vote. Where to start. Capitalism is a huge factor in Human ingenuity. People see a need, create something to fill that need and sell that product to others so they may fill that need. Capitalism allows a person to do that and gives some a drive to do it. Anti Trust laws are in place to ensure that people have a fair shot in the Market. America is still on fossil fuels for several reasons. The ease and abundance of obtaining. Lack of suitable alternative fuels. The fucking NIMBY crowd. When something better comes along they will be displaced. America is trailing in Education for many reasons. #1 is lack of parental initiative. #2 would be the liberalization of our country. Failure is now considered acceptable , because you don't want little Johnny to feel bad if he doesn't do as good as the others. We lower our standards cause we don't want to hurt his feelings. So we force everyone else to regress just so Johnny can keep up. We also don't fire the dirtbag teachers who absolutely fucking suck because they have seniority and a union that will blame everyone but the teacher. As for the internet Fuck are you ignorant. DARPA helped create a part of it. You really need to look up the history of the internet. NAmes Like Tim Berners-Lee, Kleinrock, What the NSF had a hand in.
COMMERCIALIZATION is why you can get on line today. Pvt companies saw a new way to do business. You know to make MONEY.
In short you took a whole bunch of random shit, That you knew nothing about. Threw it up and hoped it would stick. Nice try though. You get a participation trophy
Rationalizations and excuses...poor ones at that.
Banksters took down Greece. Watch Max Keiser. http://rt.com/programs/keiser-report/the-keiser-report-episode-45/
So if I am Greek - I go out, molest a child and get paid Government benefits ? WOW! insanity lol!!! I believe it though because I see the same trends developing here over the past 50 years. The Road to Serfdom is upon us!
So even when a Socialist State fails - Capitalism is to blame lol? It must be nice too have your cake & eat it too. Keep it up lol!
History Channel Documentary: "Hippies" recounts the disasterous communal experiment of the 1960's.
Greece has a parliamentary republic. It is not a socialist country.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gr.html
Ok Socialist by defacto high level of of re-distributive tax policy. That's how they get around being called socialists -the outright control of the means of production. They dont have the guts to take full responsibility so they just extort others for their work just like the Mafia. No difference.
Seems the U.S. debt to gdp ratio isn't that far off from Greece's. Maybe all the welfare breaks to the rich and the stupid useless wars are to blame? Did that ever occur to you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt
Rounded up the wars were 1.5 Trillion. TARP 1 Trillion, Stimulus 1 Trillion. Where did the other 12 trillion in debt come from?
Could you look up the Bush tax cuts? And, tax loopholes to the wealthy and corporations? Thanks for doing the research, aries.
Perhaps you would like to calculate what is lost per second.
Ooooops, there went yet another school.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/a-ticker-on-whats-lost/
Thanks, shooz. I hadn't seen that post. Excellent. Who needs aries, anyway? LOL!
tax receipts went up with the Bush tax cuts - what are you talking about. Cap gains receipts doubled! You cant look at rates you have to look at receipts. Maybe you should do Your research.
I like shooz's post below. Check out the ticker:
http://costoftaxcuts.com/
hahahaha! thats pretty funny. That represents out of control government spending if anything. Look at the table at the bottom of this article.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/are-the-bush-tax-cuts-the-root-of-our-fiscal-problem/
The article was written by a member of Reagan and Bush's administration.
I like shooz's ticker better. Thanks anyway.
the data in the table comes from the congressional budget office. I could care less about the article. I look at the data. Did tax revenue go up or down? the first couple of years mind you they did go down. It takes awhile for the money to work itself through the economy. Hardly the cause of 16trillion in debt. Now Obama wants another 1.2 trillion When is enough enough?
Okay. How about this article that says "The second graph shows that under Mr. Bush, tax cuts and war spending were the biggest policy drivers of the swing from projected surpluses to deficits from 2002 to 2009."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24sun4.html
actually no - zero republicans voted for the Stim Plan in 09.
That's because the democrats had the majority and the Republicans wanted to be able to point the finger later.
TARP is not the same as the Obama Stimulus. It's two separate things. 800 Plus Billion each. TARP was Bush end of 08, Stimulus was Obama beginning of 09.
Okay. Thanks for clarifying. Republicans backed the stimulus, though, didn't they?
"Amen. Just join us, aries." I know - misery loves company. No thanks.
LOL! Your choice.
how do you account for the spending increase from 2.5trillion to 3.7trillion?
It's probably the stimulus which W supported as he left office and plenty of Republicans voted for. Where would we have gone without it? I don't know. Got a time machine? We could go back and find out.
of course it's "better" It supports your world view lol!
Amen. Just join us, aries. You're not a rich man. Trickle down doesn't work. Secure a better future for yourself and your family. I'm not kidding.
huh? actually 2008. Funny - the argument has changed. So only after the collapse the tax cuts were a problem. So 2009 - present. How do you account for the big jump in annual spending from 2.5 trillion to 3.7 trillion per year since Obama?
Ten Myths About the Bush Tax Cuts http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2007/01/ten-myths-about-the-bush-tax-cuts
Here's a better summary:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/revisiting-the-cost-of-the-bush-tax-cuts/2011/05/09/AFxTFtbG_blog.html
That is all about 2007 and prior. The effects hadn't been fully felt yet.
I am not 1% by a long shot . I defend the interests of the 1% because I get how the economy works. When the 1% do well we all do well. What do you think - they hide their money under a mattress? 50% is more than enough of ones income to have to give to the govt. leave some for private charity & investment. It's all a matter of who you think should control the money I earn. You really think the government will do a better job spending our money than we will ourselves?
Yes. I do. Because it's not "we." It's "them." The wealthy and the corporations. They're controlling our economy and our government.
They are laughing at you, aries, for buying into their crap. Look at the last 30 years since Reagan. The middle class has been eroding, the poor have been increasing and the rich have been getting richer. Trickle down economics is over, finished, it is a lie.
fair share? You are going to determine what's fair hahaha! I think 36% top rate for individuals making over $347K is enough. Add in State & local tax and they pay more than 50%. Corporate rate is 35% again - that needs to go down not up. You don't get more revenue by increasing taxes. You get more revenue by growing the economy and as a result you get to tax more economic activity. Unless you just want to punish people who you think have too much money which seems to be the case. Don't forget - a large part of the Bush tax cuts went to the 99%. Do you want to reverse that as well?
See Modest Capitalist. He addresses this better than I ever could.
And, are you rich aries? Are you in the 1%? You never answered my question a long time ago. Why do you defend the interests of the 1%?
Your author can say whatever they want and put up whatever gibberish graph they want. Just like I didn't care about the first story I put up. Look at the figures. When we are talking about tax revenue, 2002,2003,2004 receipts went down a bit, Oh yea we had a short recession in 2001 We got out of rather quickly due to tax cuts. Then 2005 2006, 2007,2008 the receipts went way up. More than enough to cover the shortfall of the first 3 years.
Why are we now spending 3.7 trillion a year while we currently take in 2.2 trillion?
Could it be because the rich and corporations are not paying their fair share of taxes?
"It's probably the stimulus which W supported"
"probably"? I think you mean TARP - governments guarantee backing the loans that defaulted.
Yes, aries, when I'm not sure I use words like "probably" because I'm not sure and, honestly, don't feel like looking it up. Yes, the stimulus, TARP. You did watch the news in 2008?
When we can finally begin rebuilding our infrastructure.
According to your figures, we have no problem at all.
we are tapped out. it's over.
If you really believe that, you should just give up.
Minimum wage jobs aren't going to cure a thing.
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According to the name of the site, that's what they want too.
The same could be said of the fascists running WallStreet.
That's why I say.................................................
OccupyWallStreet!!
Greece is effectively run by it's employees. The rioters? That's been mostly the clueless employees that can't seem to figure out why they can't retire at 50.
You know, not all people think exactly the way Americans think. Not all people around the world want to work until they're dead simply hoping to accumulate enough material crap to garner respect from their neighbors while their latchkey kids barely know them. Take Steve Job whom Americans now lionize. During the last few months of his life the guy wrote his memoir. He even admitted that he did that so that his children would get to know him. That is one of the most pathetic things I've ever heard yet he is lionized. Maybe the Greeks value other things.
Maybe the Greeks value other things? I'm honest to God sitting here laughing as I write this. Thanks for that.
Greeks can value whatever the hell they please. But it's when they value borrowing money, not paying it back, and then cluelessly wonder what happened where it runs into problems. Now they can "value" things like not being able to import pharmaceuticals because their irresponsible don't give a fuck about tomorrow society doesn't pay for things. Greeks can value what they want, but we can value not having them as our welfare cases. Seems fair.
This piece perhaps shares your view. It's a bit dated, but shows what's happening. It's worse now. See, people that invest in and work at these pharma companies "value" not having to carry Greeks on their backs.
http://www.naturalnews.com/028922_Greece_Big_Pharma.html
Big Pharma is one of the most corrupt industries in the U.S. Morally bankrupt, as well.
Still, how are we any better than them when our debt to gdp ratio is so similar. Don't want to touch that now do you? Difference is, we got their by providing welfare to the rich and corporations and by funding needless wars.
Yeah, they're corrupt. They send product into a country and then expect to be paid for it. That's wrong of them. Greeks should have some right to just skip paying for it. LOL.
We're better off for a number of reasons, although we need to be mindful that we too could face a crisis. 1) Greek debt/GDP is much higher; 2) they've borrowed in an external currency they don't control; 3) they have even bigger problems with government employee unions; 4) they have much greater problems with corruption and tax avoidance.
Almost half the country pays nothing to support the federal government. They get government for free and many get outside payments taken from their neighbors. Welfare to the rich is pure leftists propaganda. Funny how simply not getting a high enough rate from successful people is tantamount to welfare, while 10s of millions paying zippo goes without notice.
The "wars" are hardly why we have debt problems. The budget problems stem from growing and uncontrollable entitlements. Besides, the "wars" are essentially over. You should take notice of that sometime. But the entitlement problem continues to hook higher with no end in sight. We also need to restart growth. As long as businesses are evil and successful people have done something wrong, that'll remain below what it could be.
The "wars," and I don't know why you put that in quotes, are not over, and during the past decade have cost the U.S. trillions of dollars. Don't belittle the moral bankruptcy of those "wars" and the money wasted on them. And, yes, the budget grows due to entitlements for the rich and corporations.
And, no as long as workers are evil and are paid extremely low wages that provide them with no disposable income to create demand there will be a slow growing economy.
I put it in quotes because they didn't much rise to that level. The enemy can't much do of anything but roadside bombs leaving our navy and air force untouched. These are hardly wars in any historical view of what war means.
Iraq is completely over-with having been settled shortly after the invasion and then again with the defeat of the insurgency before Obama took office. Afghanistan is a minor conflict and it too will be winding down.
The rest is pure propaganda. The money spent on the "wars" isn't ongoing. Entitlements are. While a leftist might count an entitlement as a successful person getting to keep some of what they earned, I wouldn't. Entitlements are Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. The typical state now spends about 23% of it's budget on Medicaid alone (another reason to smarten up and close the border). And the federal deficit just intensifies, gosh, even after the "wars".
The government is also hampered because almost half the population pays NOTHING to support it. And when only better off people pay taxes, tax receipts become more volatile in step with the more volatile incomes of higher income people. Marrying rigid and ever increasing spending with fluctuating income of only better off people is not stable.
I gotta give you the dingbat award. Again, crying about low wages when you think we aren't entitled to a border. Really, just take a class in economics, learn at least something about supply and demand and what happens if you super-size the zippo skill part of the labor force.
Just pick one. If you think flooding the country with drop outs is a fantastic humanitarian gesture, at least don't embarrass yourself by bitching about low wages. You just look stupid.
You have no idea why healthcare costs so much, do you? It's because of insurance companies, biotech firms, pharmaceutical companies and greedy doctors. How many economics classes have you taken?
It's because too many use other people's money to pay for it. That's inflationary. Most people couldn't give a fuck what it costs because it's paid via insurance or government, aka your neighbor.
Greedy doctors. Fuck you. Let's see you spend 12 or 16 years of your life studying. "
Greedy": Short-hand leftist speak for wanting what someone else has and being puzzled why it isn't free.
Yes, too bad they borrowed themselves into oblivion. Even now, the unions have no idea why they can't simply borrow more. OWS moonbats apparently wonder why as well.
Hmm. Seems the U.S. isn't that far off from Greece in Debt to GDP ratio:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt
Yes, it's a problem here too. It's especially bad in places like Illinois that are so encumbered by clueless unions that it's at risk of default at some point. At least we borrow in our own currency; that helps some. But the funny thing about a crisis: it isn't one until it is one. Thinking there's nothing to worry about because things seem fine is a bad idea. When creditors pull the plug, it's like yelling fire in a theater.
Greece's debt to GDP is much worse still than here though.
Sucks. There was a ring of people in Greece that sold babies who's parents couldn't afford to take care of them to parents in the US who couldn't have children of their own and who were turned away by the state-owned adoptive services (for bureaucratic reasons) in the early '80s. They got broken up by those "working in the interests of children".
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You are an incredible idiot. I doubt very much you are part of the 1%, just a wannabe. A wannabe Sky Person, but you are really a Mud Person just like us. Or rather like so many Greeks are already and we will be soon -- if the Wall St. banksters have their way.
Why don't you get out your Ayn Rand pics and do what you do best?
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Ann Coulter is another psychopath. And she can sue me.
LOL!
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OIC. That explains everything.
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We saw the same thing in Nebraska under the safe haven law.
It shows how desperate people have become.
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Fuck you.
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Losing your creative touch there with your alts, aren't ya?
Right wing douche bag.
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Alternative ID= Alt.
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Ya, the individual that learns its talking points from Ann and Laura has an opinion that we should all take into consideration.
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It is happening here in the US at OWS rallies too...
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/capital-land/2012/01/man-charged-after-baby-found-mcpherson-square-tent/2085666
Unconscionable Usurious 'Odious Debt' Is The Fundamenrtal Problem !!!
"Greece must be the most family-centric society in western Europe, yet its media is full of reports of newborns dumped outside clinics, or infants shunted into foster homes. Such stories almost never come up when politicians and economists debate Europe's meltdown; implicitly, they are categorised as fall-out, for journalists and campaigners to highlight.
Yet the abandoned children of Greece are not merely coincidental to those discussions about how to tackle the debt; they are integral to it. Strip away the technicalities and you are left with two ways to think about the debt crisis. One is as a battle between the past and the future. The vast majority of Greece's debts are historic commitments made to creditors by previous governments, sometimes in very dubious circumstances. Yet Athens has been forced to prioritise repaying these old loans over generating economic growth, or future income. One result of that policy has been to snatch away whatever chance Greek kids might have had of decent lives.
The second way to think about any argument over debt: as a fight between creditors and borrowers, or the haves and the have-nots. The creditors have the money and therefore the whip-hand over the borrowers. They also have the political influence: the boss of Deutsche Bank would, one suspects, get more face time with Greece's prime minister or any other Eurozone leader than the Greek families and a whole coachload of their neighbours. His demands are also more likely to get preferential treatment, which is a major reason why Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy has gone through such contortions over Athens' loans.
Before last summer, eurozone policy-makers swore blind that they would never countenance Greece failing to pay all of its debts in full. After finally accepting that that was impossible, they then asked if bankers would be good enough to knock 21% off the country's loans, rising over time to 40% and then 50%, or even a little more. Meanwhile, economists at the IMF estimate that Greece should actually have 75% wiped off its debt burden – and market prices indicate that figure should really be over 90%. But economic reality has been no match for the stranglehold bankers have on European politicians – who, by the way, swore last month that no other country would fail to pay its loans in full.
And yet economic history is full of examples of successful debt default. When American Airlines declared recently that it was bankrupt and couldn't carry on repaying its loans, it was applauded by Wall Street analysts as "very smart". The whole point of company insolvencies is to work out the value and viability of the underlying enterprise; if it can carry on, banks and other creditors get squared off at vastly reduced sums and the productive part of the firm is back in business.
The same goes for countries. Regimes sunk by revolutions don't repay their debts; nor do countries that lose wars. (When they are made to, as with Germany after the first world war, terrible things can result.) Over the past couple of decades, campaigners have successfully won debt relief for poor countries in Africa and Asia. Other nations, such as Ecuador or Argentina or Iceland, have simply declared they cannot repay all that they owe.
Ultimately, a loan is a social arrangement and, like any other contract, it can be renegotiated. A few decades ago, archaeologists discovered the first ever legal contract in Lagash in modern-day Iraq. Dated back 4,400 years and carved into the bricks of a Mesopotamian temple, it was for the cancellation of debt. It's claimed that countries that don't repay their loans will be frozen out by lenders. Yet IMF economists have recently argued that "the economic costs are generally significant but short-lived . . . we almost never can detect effects beyond one or two years."
In his recent, brilliant history "Debt: the First 5,000 Years", the anthropologist David Graeber calls for a modern-day debt jubilee, a cancellation of all debts, just as they had in Mesopotamia. His suggestion is provocative, but it should be taken seriously. Because the longer we keep protecting the haves over the have-nots and honouring the past while destroying the future, the worse this debt crisis will get."
~*~
The above is edited and abridged from "It's time to cancel unpayable old debts. Economic history is full of examples of successful debt default – so let's make 2012 a default jubilee for have-nots", by Aditya Chakrabortty ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/09/time-cancel-unpayable-old-debts ).
fiat justitia ruat caelum ...
Thanks for posting this.
This is really sad and while you guys are blaming bankers for it, the facts of the case are that the Greek government should have seen this coming. They overspent themselves for year, borrowing with the power of the Euro. Their costs, their salaries have been way higher than most countries. I am not sayin you shouldn't pay high salaries but please don't do it by borrowing money.
Living within your means is a long forgotten adage it seems
It should be crystal clear by now bankers and politicians need to be blamed because they have been conspiring together
I guess then I am just not as smart as you are. I dont see anything crsytal clear here.
you don't have to be smart...........you just need to be aware which obviously you are not :-(
" Mr Greenspan's successor, Ben Bernanke, is criticised for failing to see that subprime mortgage losses would lead to much bigger problems; Wall Street's regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, is criticised for letting banks hold a mere $1 for every $40 of lending activity they did, so that even modest losses could wipe them out; the Bush administration is condemned for an inconsistent response to the unfolding crisis."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/bankers-politicians-and-the-people-blamed-for-credit-crisis-2195542.html
Why is that OWS hippies think they are the only ones 'aware' when they fact is most of your news sources are border line conspiracy sites, say Zero Hedge
Not failing to act or not being able to act effectively is not the same as being guilty. I hope you do realize that banks did not gain by the tanking of the economy. If anything, we would love to keep the party going as long as possible.
A few prominent economist, like Dr. Raghuram Rajan, did predict this debacle. Nobody listened to him then, everyone was too consumed in enjoying the good times.
" banks did not gain by the tanking of the economy " what absolute rubbish! They speculated trillions of dollars in credit default swaps that the value of assets would plummet even while they were telling their clients the opposite!
Right on!
Scout, You omitted one little fact. The banks also bet against the CDS and made the fortune straight out of AIG, which in turn was rescued by the government. Total undisclosed cost of the sorry affair = 7.7 T R I L I O N. "$7.77 Trillion
The amount of money the central bank parceled out was surprising even to Gary H. Stern, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis from 1985 to 2009, who says he “wasn’t aware of the magnitude.” It dwarfed the Treasury Department’s better-known $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Add up guarantees and lending limits, and the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion as of March 2009 to rescuing the financial system, more than half the value of everything produced in the U.S. that year. - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-28/secret-fed-loans-undisclosed-to-congress-gave-banks-13-billion-in-income.html - "
It almost makes you want to vote for Ron Paul.
So why did Lehman fail then? JPM, MS and so many other firms lost money. You have no idea what you are talking about.
Also I doubt if you understand what 'speculation' is. And yes, you are right about the CDS, that seller did stand to lose due to default. The point being, most banks lost money. A few gained, they were wiser.
Do you mean OWS hippies as opposed to OWS middle class workers? OWS college graduates? OWS ex-professionals? Come on, Mr crystal clear, apparently you've directed your question to OWS hippies. I can't speak for them. As a matter of fact, I don't know any.
Banks did not gain by tanking the economy? Look at their bonuses for the year after the economy tanked. If bankers weren't growing rich on fees all this would never have happened.
Not only did people see this coming but the banks were betting on the mortgages tanking so they could clean up. What...you live in like a cave somewhere?
We had far bigger bonuses before the downturn. Entire desks and divisions had to be shut down. Lots of people lost their jobs. You have no idea. Not that I expect you to have one either.
Wrong again. Some thought they would not fail while some realized they would (like GS). I may or may not live in a cave, but I sure don't live in a open park and shit and poop in the open.
"Goldman Sachs is expected to pay its employees an average of about $595,000 apiece for 2009, one of the most profitable years in its 141-year history. Workers in the investment bank of JPMorgan Chase stand to collect about $463,000 on average."
"...few banks are taking immediate steps to reduce bonuses substantially. Instead, Wall Street is confronting a dilemma of riches: How to wrap its eye-popping paychecks in a mantle of moderation. Because of the potential blowback, some major banks are adjusting their pay practices, paring or even eliminating some cash bonuses in favor of stock awards and reducing the portion of their revenue earmarked for pay.
"Some bank executives contend that financial institutions are beginning to recognize that they must recalibrate pay for a post-bailout world."
GS outperformed everyone because they bet against mortgages. JPMC laid off a lot of people and now are in bad situation.
I am not sure where you got this from. The situation here is not like that.
Here's the link...
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/banks-prepare-for-bigger-bonuses-and-publics-wrath/
Jan 10, 2010. Dont you think that article is a little old? As for the paychecks, even a fresh trader makes around $150k at least (then there would be bonuses). Big deal. Banks (and funds) would rather lay off people if the going gets tough rather than cut salaries. Overheads are not tolerated.
And as for latest news, Nomura reported a $900m loss, they are downsizing big time. JPMC reports a good year but most of it is one time earnings or accounting changes.
We were arguing as to whether banks profited "tanking the economy". I think it's clear that they did. More importantly, individual bankers profited. Who really gives a fuck about the institutions? No one has said the banks are doing well now. Some sanity has been restored to our government and regulations are in place to reign in the wild speculation and creative book-keeping so banks are becoming more realistic. That's not a bad thing.