It’s all over the news!” Greece is on FIRE”. There are so many protests and very violent ones too. Buildings are on fire and people getting hit by police tear gas. Now let’s look at the cause of this. There are two causes of this, people are talking about and both are very possible. The first possible cause of it was the utopian Social Programs in Greece. Here is taste on what you can get from Greece’s Social Programs:
•You can retire at the age of 53 , with a pretty good pension
•The Social Health Care System will cover everything without a price
• The Wealth Fare System is basically covering the whole country
•Simply OVERSPENDING on entitlements and is eating the country alive...
And do you know what we do? Pick one of the choices:
A) Mind our own business
B) Advise on what to do and still mind our own business
C) Bail out Greece and then plan to bail out Europe as well
Well judging how insane our government is and how brainless it is and doesn’t look at all what will happen in the future... We would choose (C) YAY!
Any ways, we are using our central banks ( Your Tax Dollars),which we (people) have no control over may I remind you, to print money out and send it about 5,000 miles across the world to Greece to bail them out on problem that was caused by the broken frame work of their government. Who else are we going to bail out? The French, Chinese, the British. They are all “TOO BIG TO FAIL” like people say so let’s bail out the world. Lets become the Atlas God, as the Greeks believed.
The next possible reason why this happened was the US Banks as some people say. The banks in the US surely did damage here and will do more since we bailed them out, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they did the same in Greece because those banks sold crap mortgage and gave out loans that reached and rolled around the a 100 times and by then no one knows who has the loans and who doesn’t. So the banks messed up the USA ,messed up Greece ,and other parts of the world and guess what we do give another 10 billion to Fannie Mae or it fail. When are they going to learn? The banks will still do the same dangerous moves to make extra bucks and the people will continue for something someone else did. The banks don’t care how much tax dollars they take all they think of it is an another time to throw the world upside down.
The US Government has to focus on the US and the US only. The government should set an example for the other nations around the world not take care of them every step of the way. Some say if Greece falls then others will fall and it will go around the whole world.
The US government has to stop looking at the will happen 2, 3, 4 days or at until their election days come around on what to do, they have to look at the long term effects. It will cause damage to the world, but how long can we keep this up and building up the pile of ****? Oh Yea until the US government goes bankrupt itself, then now who do you think is going to $$$BAIL us OUT$$$?
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ReplyDeleteWhy did you change the name of your blog? It makes it rather difficult to follow it.
ReplyDeleteOkay, now to your points. I disagree that the problems that Greece is now facing are mostly due to their social programs (primarily because other countries have similar programs and have not suffered to this extent), but are instead due to their corrupt government. To explain, Greece has had economic problems for decades and was borrowing money from other nations to support itself. It then paid Goldman Sachs millions of dollars (since at least 2001) to hid how much borrowing occurred. Those internal financial problems combined with the effect of the International Financial Crisis (both directly and indirectly (such as a loss of tourism)), caused a massive crisis in Greece. Incidentally, the protests you refer to were actually due to the Greek government cutting benefits, decreasing pensions (in a round-a-bout manner), limiting bonuses, freezing wages, and increasing taxes. Shouldn’t you be supporting most of what the government is now doing?
In the end, I think that there were four forces that caused this problem. Goldman Sachs being used to lie to the EU about the situation, the corrupt politicians who used Goldman Sachs, the social programs that were not being regulated properly and (potentially) certain credit rating agencies. I agree with the two causes, but I do not feel that they include other important factors.
As for the people having no control over the Federal Reserve, yeah that is true. The Reserve is a semi-autonomous entity that is part of the government. The Reserve is the result of a compromise between those who wanted a highly regulated system and those who wanted a highly unregulated system (Effectively the debate between having a public bank and a private bank). The long terms that many members have is also because the government did not want it swayed by political upheavals (similar to the Supreme Court). The bank is also allowed to invest and spend government money (as all banks are) to make a profit, as long as that profit is turned over to the government. Well, now that my boring and probably pointless explanation of the Reserve is done I have a few questions. Is the Reserve lending the money, or is Congress lending the money? Is interest being charged? Beyond that I do agree that the US should look out for its citizenry first.
As for bailing out China and France, I have my doubts. First, the US hates the French (we tried to rename French Fries because of our hatred). Second, France seems to have a pretty good economy going. China is even more problematic. It really is profiting and owns most of the US' debt, so I doubt we would ever need to bail them out. The UK is possible, but that depends on what happens to Greece (or probably what Spain does, and since Spain is adamant that it does not need help the UK probably will not either).
By the way, Atlas was a Titan and held up the sky, not the world (sorry my Greek history geekiness is showing).
I also have a bit of a question for you, how would you solve this problem?
I have a second question. You often note that America protects other countries (and seem to believe that doing so is good/morally neutral) so shouldn't you be supporting this? Am I just misinterpreting your position?
Note, I am more or less agreeing with you, but I think that there are some factors that you have missed.
The reason we are bailing out these nations is exactly what you said: they are indeed to big and too important to fail. This is exactly what happened to the Ottoman Empire that caused the Eastern Question in the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries. The Ottoman Empire had controlled the economy of Eurasia for practically half of a millennium. When Muhammad Ali's revolt in Egypt broke out, Britain, France, and Russia helped to stabilize the Ottoman Turks. If they had not, the empire would have fallen too suddenly and would have crippled the world economy from Qin China to Portugal. This is what is happening now. Although Greece is not as imperative as the Ottoman Empire was, a sudden fall can harm us. This next quotation was taken from http://www.greekexporters.gr/
ReplyDelete"Athens, June 2006 - Greek exports jumped 22.8 percent to 3.841 billion euros in the first three months of 2006, up from 3.126 billion euros in the corresponding period last year, the Hellenic Export Promotion Organization said recently.
In an analysis of trade figures released by National Statistics Service, the Organization said of the 714 million euros increase in exports in the first quarter, 176 million euros accounted for exports of oil products, 194 mln in exports of food and 171.6 mln euros in industrial goods."
Not as important as the Ottomans but still fairly important. Which, in fact, is the reason it is logical to bail these nations out.
thanks for commenting all :), now let me tell you my quick view. You are right if they fail it will make a big ripple effect and will affect us. But Greece is in Europe and Europe wants to have a "crappy frame work" then they have to pay to bail them out. Europe has the money to do it , they all have to pull THEIR money as one and bail Greece out. We have to worry about our country and our market not others , because we are in trouble as Greece and did anyone come to the US and give us their money to bail us out? NO, I wish they did but they didnt.
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