World Events - Political, Economic, Nuclear, Etc

[Bambi]

rijn said:

Maybe we can put the Greek stuff in it's own thread. I'm thrilled to keep discussing, I like world affairs but it clutters an otherwise light thread with some potentially dense stuff.. Maybe even a world events thread would be fun..

 

 

Following up on rijn's suggestion, I have created this thread to discuss these heavier topics.

 

Today, on the table, we have the Iran Nuclear Deal - which may or may not happen - as each side has taken hard position. And, the Greek fiasco continues with the Greek people in distress, their economy brought to a grinding halt and apparantely, decisions will be taken over the weekend. 

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[Bambi]

Lack of trust and lack of credibility of the Greek government to actually keep their word is the problem and therefore, it appears the EBC is not yet ready to turn on the Euro tap.  

[ralk]

Lack of trust and lack of credibility of the Greek government to actually keep their word is the problem and therefore, it appears the EBC is not yet ready to turn on the Euro tap.  

 

Yeah, but the current approach to "helping" Greece from the EBC and other Eurozone countries makes it impossible for Greece to keep their word without effectively destroying their economy.

 

Plenty of blame to go around, much of it to the Greeks, but there needs to be a viable solution on the table and right now, there isn't. Greece's GDP has been kicked back a full decade, their unemployment is 25%, and it only looks to get worse if they continue on the path set by their creditors. Despite massive austerity, their public debt as a percentage of GDP has actually gone up because their GDP has fallen so far. If Greece capitulates now - and that's looking likely - it'll solve the immediate crisis, but the longer-run problem will still be there.

[Bambi]

It seems like an impossible task. Immediate legislation may be the answer to show the EU they are serious about pushing through reforms. Of course, this may result in rebellion in the ruling party and a coalition government. For sure, people and companies need cash to live and for a viable commerce.

 

We are fortunate to be living where we are! 

[Bambi]

They say there is an Agreekment!

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[Bambi]

 

 

And there is a deal with Iran. 

[Falling]

The usual suspects already war mongering over this Iran deal. 

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[Bambi]

Cows are nice. 

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[Bambi]

They often are........

[Bambi]

I just received the following email from someone regarding the Greek crisis. The source was not given, but if this is true, it gives perspective to the situation:

 

Some interesting facts concerning the Greek monetary crisis.

 

Experts mandated by the European Union to investigate the causes that led Greece to the current economic situation relate the following facts:

 

Greece falsified its accounts to enter the euro zone and has distorted the facts until it finally exploded. There were massive retirements of state employees at the age of 50 years.  At Evangelismos hospital, in Athens, there were 50 drivers for officials' cars, and on average there were 45 gardeners for a small lawn with 4 bushes.

 

Greece has the highest population in the world of people reporting an age of 110 years. The deaths are often not registered and pensions continue to be received. The European Union has found that there are families receiving 4-5 pensions, which they are not supposed to get. There are still pensions paid to persons who died in 1953, 50 years ago. 40,000 girls receive a monthly life pension of 1,000 Euros for the simple fact that they are unmarried daughters of deceased civil servants and this costs the state coffers €550 million Euros per year.

 

The pacemakers supplied in Greek hospitals were acquired at a price 400 times  higher than those in British hospitals. In Greece, many workers have benefited from early retirement, set at 50 years for women and 55 for men who belong to one of the 600 job categories identified as particularly painful, and among which are included hairdressers (because of dyes that may be considered harmful), the musicians of wind instruments (blowing into a flute is exhausting) or TV presenters (the microphones are supposed to cause damage to health). (This law was adopted by the Socialist government of 1978).

 

There are thousands of good "tricks" departments and unnecessary institutions, which many Greeks live off. For example the Institute for the Protection of Kopais Lake, which has been a dry lake since 1930.

 

In the last decade, it has created over 300 new public companies. Tax evasion is massive, over 25% of Greeks do not pay a cent on personal income. In addition, the weight of the public sector in the economy is overwhelming. There are about one million officials to 4,000,000 active people.

 

 

On the Greek public railways, the average salary of employees exceeds €66.000.- per year. And this includes the cleaners and the low skilled. The (almost free) Athens Metro delivers about 90 million tickets a year, while the total cost of running this public company exceeds 500 million euros.

 

French pensioners receive on average of 51% of their last salary, the Germans 40%, North Americans 41% and Japanese 34%. Meanwhile, Greek pensioners receive 96% of their salary earlier.

 

Greece has four times more teachers than Finland, the best situated country in the last PISA report, while the student performance in Greece is the lowest among many European countries by comparison.

 

 

 

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[Bambi]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/06/greek-pensions

[oshaku]

 

I just received the following email from someone regarding the Greek crisis. The source was not given, but if this is true, it gives perspective to the situation:

 

Some interesting facts concerning the Greek monetary crisis.

 

Experts mandated by the European Union to investigate the causes that led Greece to the current economic situation relate the following facts:

 

Greece falsified its accounts to enter the euro zone and has distorted the facts until it finally exploded. There were massive retirements of state employees at the age of 50 years.  At Evangelismos hospital, in Athens, there were 50 drivers for officials' cars, and on average there were 45 gardeners for a small lawn with 4 bushes.

 

Greece has the highest population in the world of people reporting an age of 110 years. The deaths are often not registered and pensions continue to be received. The European Union has found that there are families receiving 4-5 pensions, which they are not supposed to get. There are still pensions paid to persons who died in 1953, 50 years ago. 40,000 girls receive a monthly life pension of 1,000 Euros for the simple fact that they are unmarried daughters of deceased civil servants and this costs the state coffers €550 million Euros per year.

 

The pacemakers supplied in Greek hospitals were acquired at a price 400 times  higher than those in British hospitals. In Greece, many workers have benefited from early retirement, set at 50 years for women and 55 for men who belong to one of the 600 job categories identified as particularly painful, and among which are included hairdressers (because of dyes that may be considered harmful), the musicians of wind instruments (blowing into a flute is exhausting) or TV presenters (the microphones are supposed to cause damage to health). (This law was adopted by the Socialist government of 1978).

 

There are thousands of good "tricks" departments and unnecessary institutions, which many Greeks live off. For example the Institute for the Protection of Kopais Lake, which has been a dry lake since 1930.

 

In the last decade, it has created over 300 new public companies. Tax evasion is massive, over 25% of Greeks do not pay a cent on personal income. In addition, the weight of the public sector in the economy is overwhelming. There are about one million officials to 4,000,000 active people.

 

 

On the Greek public railways, the average salary of employees exceeds €66.000.- per year. And this includes the cleaners and the low skilled. The (almost free) Athens Metro delivers about 90 million tickets a year, while the total cost of running this public company exceeds 500 million euros.

 

French pensioners receive on average of 51% of their last salary, the Germans 40%, North Americans 41% and Japanese 34%. Meanwhile, Greek pensioners receive 96% of their salary earlier.

 

Greece has four times more teachers than Finland, the best situated country in the last PISA report, while the student performance in Greece is the lowest among many European countries by comparison.

 

 

 

 

 

This post came from here: http://alansteel.tumblr.com/  

where the author cites his source as "a good friend of mine" and that "These “facts” were allegedly discovered through the work of a team of experts mandated by the European Union to investigate the causes that led to the current economic drama in Greece."

 

Trying to look for sources on these claims.  So far, I've got that Greece did indeed admit it cooked its books to join the EU, the 40,000 girls receive a monthly life pension story checks out.  Bambi already verified the pension fraud story.  Tax evasion and early retirements also true.  

 

I'm still not sure if I believe every point, but the verified points is already enough for my new perspective.

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[oshaku]

The difficulty isn't the truth of the statements but there is no comparison. What's the average salary of CN workers? How many unemployed people do you know that pay taxes on personal income? How many unnecessary Canadian government workers? It's a disingenuous article engineered to evoke the response "Tut, tut, they're sooo bad."

 

Hellenic mis-management is not up for debate, it's a given. Pensions are a known cause so was the lying. Welcome to 2012.

 

Currently, in a place very much like here, millions of people who are very worried about their future. Seniors are asking themselves if they'll have enough money to eat next week. Children are asking themselves if they can find a way to care for their parents. And instead of discussing solutions we sit around and mutter to ourselves 'Aren't they terrible?' Then we run around trying to strengthen the claims of a bigot because a fraction are true.

 

We find an anonymous blog entry from the poster child for austerity and a premed student that sounds like protagonist from a film noire. "Facts check out boys, case closed."

 

 

'Tout ce que tu dis parle de toi. Singulièrement quand tu parles d'un autre.' (Valéry)

 

Those are some major assumptions from a very high horse here.  

 

Do note that I was simply fact checking on a previous post (made anonymously on an internet forum) - which led to the blog. Since it is indeed an anonymous internet post, I went on to fact check individual claims from trusted news publications - some of which there were sources, some of which there were not.  

 

"How many unemployed people do you know that pay taxes on personal income?"

 

I find this question confusing since unemployed persons (assuming they have no income) do have to pay income tax and therefore not paying income tax would not be charged with tax evasion.  Just because they're unemployed now doesn't mean they shouldn't have paid income tax when they were employed.

 

"How many unnecessary Canadian government workers?"

 

I don't know.  I also wasn't able to source the claims about Greek's governmental personnel.  It feels rather pointless to talk about something that I have no knowledge of and would be incapable of offering any insights in.

 

"Hellenic mis-management is not up for debate, it's a given. Pensions are a known cause so was the lying. Welcome to 2012."

 

Well, thank you for assuming everybody knows everything that ever happened in the world till 2015 and making people feel bad if they didn't know as much as you.

 

"And instead of discussing solutions we sit around and mutter to ourselves 'Aren't they terrible?' Then we run around trying to strengthen the claims of a bigot because a fraction are true."

 

It's rather presumptuous of you to thing that a bunch of premeds (med students and residents) are more capable of coming up with solutions to the world's economic problems than the leading economists of the world.  

 

"We find an anonymous blog entry from the poster child for austerity and a premed student that sounds like protagonist from a film noire. "Facts check out boys, case closed.""

 

I think mentioning that the effect of my fact-checking efforts was indeed a new perspective to think about the problem, rather than not thinking about the problem, means that it is absolutely not "case closed". Oh and I did notice the subtle pulling of ranking here.

 

I am purposely being sarcastic here because I believe that to solve a problem, you'd have to understand it first, which cannot be achieved when people decide it's somehow "racist" to talk about the issues at hand.  A post was made making rather egregious charges about Greece.  Either it gets shot down as absolute bullshit, or checked out and verified as true.  I'm not sure why anybody would be against that. 

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