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If Germans can get more done in 1400 hours than Greeks working double the hours that should tell you something right there.
How can anybody be so clueless. They were struggling in the 1980's and for the 150 years before that. Greece has always been a poor country. It just doesn't look poor right now because it maxed out the German credit card. Yugoslavia looked nice in the 1970's until they ran out of Slovenian money ..... but 10 years of not having money to keep up your infrastructure and everything starts looking like hell. That's what you'll see in Greece in 10 years.
Don't confuse the issue. This is not a math or statistics final--The concept is very simple. Do the 1.8 million people who live in West Virginia produce more per capita than the 11 million people in Greece or not? The answer is yes. Whether that number is 2/3 or 1/2 of the West Virginia number doesn't matter.
Do parts of West Virginia look like hell holes? The answer is yes.
The question I have then is why does Greece think it has the means to look nice and have nice stuff? The correct answer is: IT DOESN'T AND IT DIDN'T.
(If you don't like my comparison using West Virginia because of the low population, it also works with more populous states that are also poor. Comparing the GDPs of Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, New Mexico, Kentucky, South Carolina will produce similar results. I purposely picked West Virginia because it is mountainous, like Greece.)
Bottom line: You can't have an economy worse than West Virginia's and have the same stuff Germany and The Netherlands have!
sure, it tells me that the Germans are not as hard working as the say they are.
How can anybody be so clueless is right! If you knew the history of Greece, you know it has been ravaged by wars including a horrible German occupation which looted their gold reserves. What does producing in WV or other states have do go with Greece? America is more industrialized and polluted for that matter and their histories as mentioned are completely different. Its a huge country with a centralized federalized form of government. What an odd comparison You need a geography and a history lesson. Who are you to say what a country can have or not? Only those sick control freaks called banksters can. Are you one of them? Maxed out the credit card that belongs to Germany?
REally that clueless? You also need another geopolitical lesson because you missed the first one. Fraudulent money that floats western european economies is what you are talking about? Money from derivatives.? Money that the banks don't have to loan but still do on speculation just as in the case as it was here in the US before the 08 crash? Banks that are basically insolvent? Economies that print money out of thin air and where debt is the norm? Really? That CLUELESS? Your comparisons are nullified because of the above stated facts and since so very little is based on the basic fundamentals of economics anymore.
Nice stuff? The US supposedly one of the richest country in the world which has a huge portion of its citizens working from paycheck to paycheck and are basically flat out broke? Many others up to their neck in debt (debt slaves)? Citizens that think a nice car is a luxury? These goods? Really? I suppose if you judge the wealth of a country by the wealth of its multinationals and greedy institutions like Goldman Sachs then you can be happy with that. Guess what? Much of the world's citizens are not!
Last edited by WildWestDude; 07-17-2015 at 10:04 PM..
Oh my. $250 billion in GDP and they only manufacture $20 billion?
Manufacturing is only a portion of the economy. Agriculture and tourism are huge. I just stated manufacturing to answer for some of the products that Greece produces.
"The Paris-based organization found that Greece’s maligned workforce put in 2,034 hours on average in 2012, more than any of the 34 countries surveyed. Industrious Northern Europeans, on the other hand, were not so, well, industrious. Germans put in 1,397 and the Swiss, 1,619 hours — both below the OECD average of 1,765."
Maybe you compare hours of staying at work in Greece with hours of real production in the aforementioned other countries? If Greece was working so hard, there would been some improvement of Greek economy, don't you think?
Quote:
Originally Posted by WildWestDude
Money that the banks don't have to loan but still do on speculation just as in the case as it was here in the US before the 08 crash?
In that case, Greece is more quilty. Greece took what wasn't belong to her and now she don't want to return. And that was decided by referendum. I think even Balkan peoples or Romanians would have had more spine, would agreed to pay their debt.
In this story, Greece is the thief and those banks are the entities that helped Greece steal, but the main fault belongs to Greece. So trying to accuse the banks instead of admiting your guilt is one more black ball for you, WWD.
And they always will be. They're not going anywhere. Whether they're part of the EU or not, they'll always be there. EU membership (or not) has nothing to do with the significance of their historic role in Europe.
Indeed it has, as EU is a dream...EUROPA is an UTHOPIA. That's why Greece joined the EU when it was a rat poor country. Modern Greece was created 150 years ago by western Europe as a bulwark, some sort of neo-byzantium and will always be Europe, Western Europe no matter if the country is almost in Asia.
As Merket said, Greek will continue.
Will they default again...of course!!!, but they'll do better.
It would be as Byzantium would have survived as a christian capital, it would have to be in the EU at any cost.
Oh my. $250 billion in GDP and they only manufacture $20 billion?
That tells you all you need to know about Greece, manifacturing makes only 7-8% of the GDP. It would have never been considered a first world country if it didn't live beyond its means
staying at work in Greece with hours of real production in the aforementioned other countries? If Greece was working so hard, there would been some improvement of Greek economy, don't you think?
In that case, Greece is more quilty. Greece took what wasn't belong to her and now she don't want to return. And that was decided by referendum. I think even Balkan peoples or Romanians would have had more spine, would agreed to pay their debt.
In this story, Greece is the thief and those banks are the entities that helped Greece steal, but the main fault belongs to Greece. So trying to accuse the banks instead of admiting your guilt is one more black ball for you, WWD.
He stands up for the banks and takes the conversation to a personal level when he knows someone has made a good counterpoint! Continuous Greek bashing by nobody else but yours truly carpathian who has never anything good to say about Greece. What's the point of even contesting anything with this person as I have numerous times before only to get pulled into name calling? But this guy keeps on going and doesn't give up with his Greek bashing! Just amazed How can anyone be so biased and hateful?
Last edited by WildWestDude; 07-18-2015 at 07:35 AM..
Mind you its compared with Greece during the crisis. Finland will be joining the club soon
"The weakest economy in the eurozone this year (2015) might not prove to be Greece or Portugal, but Finland. The Nordic country is entering its fourth year of recession, with output still well below its 2008 peak.".........."“The public finances are completely screwed, it can’t go on like this,”"
Yes, the economy has been in poor shape and has not recovered from the recession. Meanwhile, we are all aware of that and are in the process of making big cuts, first €4 billion, later €6 billion more, and also trying to stimulate foreign investment. The people are on board on this and austerity-parties gained a landslide victory in the April parliamentary elections. The situation is completely different from Greece, as our foreign debt is 59% of GDP, we have a higher total GDP and the industrial situation is completely different. Saying that we are "the next Greece" is just fearmongering, and the article says:
“It’s not yet as bad here as Greece, but that’s only a matter of time,” says Seppo, a 43-year-old software engineer who lost job along with 500 others last summer after Microsoft, the new owner of Nokia’s mobile devices and services division, abandoned Oulu.
No other country is in a similar situation situation as Greece.
If your debt to GDP ratio is that low, wouldn't large deficit spending to stimulate the economy be a good idea rather than austerity? That's what we did here, and it helped. Cutting spending leads to the GDP shrinking further; ratio I read is by a factor of about 1.5.
It's a bit odd to hear self-described left-leaning Europeans praise austerity, it's a view I'd associate with the Republican Party.
“It’s the structure of our exports that’s a big problem, and that has nothing to do with austerity,” says Danske Bank’s Kuoppamäki.
Even if austerity isn’t entirely to blame for Finland’s current problems, further austerity measures could make things worse. Holding the line on wage increases could dampen consumer demand still further, along with curbs on pension and welfare spending that the government wants to impose. Although Finland needs to revamp its welfare state, KuoppamUaki says, “this might not be the right time to address it.”
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How can anyone be so biased and hateful?
