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Tens of thousands protest outside Greek parliament

Djoop said:
Under the Junta they actually reduced the amount of civil servants. That's 25% of the workforce these days, 30 billion euri on wages alone.
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The Junta was ultra conservative. It came to power to stop in part a communist power grab during the cold war. They reduced the amount of civil servants because it was in the civil service (parts) where the "commies had infiltrated". They also hit down on unions and seized quite a few companies with links to the left/opposition. :) That is what Juntas do!
 
PeteEU said:
Err so giving tax cuts to big business and deregulating is not conservative policies?

And thanks for proving another point about some conservatives... blame everyone else for their own mistakes... just like you saying they are not "real" conservatives because they acted like all other conservative parties that got it wrong over the last 30 years.. /wave GOP and the neo-cons.
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Dude, here's an easy way to view conservatives in terms of how we approach government interference. Two words.. Hands off .. Or one word.. Limited! That includes any corporate welfare, hand outs, gifts cronism, corruption.. All that jive bro..

Tim-
 
Djoop said:
Under the Junta they actually reduced the amount of civil servants. That's 25% of the workforce these days, 30 billion euri on wages alone.
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Sorry I phrased the question poorly. I meant how much of it was accrued under military rule. I was thinking of examples like Duvalier in Haiti, foreigners install and support a regime, the regime takes out huge loans then leaves the people with the debt. Best racket in the world.
 
PeteEU said:
First of all .. every conservative outside the US is light years to the left of American conservatives.

Secondly, Greek conservatives are just like every other conservative politician in the real world. They cut taxes, sell off state companies to friends and allow big business to run amok.. and hello financial crisis!
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Socialist civil servants would never be so unscrupulous as to waste public funds to enrich themselves and their civil servant buddies (or any private inetresst buddies that are allowed by the system)! No wait, they raise taxes so they can give more appropriate more of those funds to corrupt jackasses.

It's truly sickening that the Greeks, with their ridiculously low retirement ages and embarassingly short working weeks, got a better bailout deal than the Irish (with our ponzi scheme of a nation that European private and public interests were complicit in funding for a quick buck) and still act like whiny bitches when they're faced with reality.
 
Both left- and right-of-center governments in Greece are responsible for that country's present predicament. Moreover, the seeds of Greece's debt crisis were planted many years ago. There were some extraordinary circumstances involved.

• Dictatorship prior to 1974 that stunted Greece's economic development, leaving the country with increasingly uncompetitive industries/firms. Toward the end of the dictatorship, as the uncompetitiveness was worsening, Greece's annual economic growth was diminishing.

• 1970s twin energy crises that created substantial economic shocks and further undermined Greece's economy.

• Greece's internationalization of its economy that created an inherent conflict from continuing social modernization and economic/fiscal restructuring. Democratically-elected governments vacillated between the two approaches.

• Greece's economic growth has become insufficient to exclude revenue-increasing measures when it comes to fiscal improvement.

• Greece experienced a cyclical boom during part of the 2000s that masked serious underlying structural problems. That boom was reversed as the U.S. real estate bubble burst, U.S. financial crisis unfolded, U.S. economy moved into a severe recession, and the U.S. contagion spread though financial and trade channels. Hence, the benefits of cyclical growth dissipated while the underlying structural problems continued to fester.

Currently, Greece is facing a solvency crisis. At the same time, in the near-term, that solvency crisis has translated into a liquidity crisis under which Greece cannot, on its own, finance its current operations. EU/IMF assistance aims to address that liquidity problem in order to buy time for Greece to adopt the expenditure- and revenue-side reforms necessary to address its solvency crisis.

Despite Greece's extraordinary predicament, Greece's opposition conservatives want to reduce that country's taxes. That move that would only exacerbate the country's current fiscal gap at a time when it is unable to fund its own operations. Greece is in no position to pursue tax cuts given the gravity of its fiscal crisis. The demand for tax cuts is a reckless maneuver aimed solely at exploiting the current crisis for political advantage. That it would worsen the crisis, if pursued, is irrelevant to the opposition.
 
well Obama should be lining up the war planes to bomb the presidential palace any minute now then, right?

did I miss something?
 
Red_Dave said:
Sorry I phrased the question poorly. I meant how much of it was accrued under military rule. I was thinking of examples like Duvalier in Haiti, foreigners install and support a regime, the regime takes out huge loans then leaves the people with the debt. Best racket in the world.
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Well, not much as far as I know. But historically, the root of the problem is the violence between the two warring parties. I think both parties are to blame for trying to secure as much of the 'public cake' as possible.
 
PeteEU said:
First of all .. every conservative outside the US is light years to the left of American conservatives.

Secondly, Greek conservatives are just like every other conservative politician in the real world. They cut taxes, sell off state companies to friends and allow big business to run amok.. and hello financial crisis!
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Your usually pretty clued up when it comes to European politics but in this case what you say is stupid and nonsensical.

ALL left wing governments in Europe have denied the existence of debt and economic downturn in there countries in order to continue financing there ideological beliefs that money that they do not have should flow constantly and be spent on businesses and services that are better run in the private sector. What has that led too?

You can thank the Labour party for destroying Britain and many other left wing parties in Europe for destroying there respective national budgets and realistic conservative governments have been voted in each time to clean up the mess.

The previous government didnt run the country to the ground because they followed conservative economic policies.....infact what they did was something very typical of the European left. The Greek conservatives are clearly very immoral people incapable of telling the truth, who thought spending other peoples money and then hiding it would enrich them and it is not something you can pin on conservative values and be taken seriously.
 
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kaya'08 said:
Your usually pretty clued up when it comes to European politics but in this case what you say is stupid and nonsensical.

ALL left wing governments in Europe have denied the existence of debt and economic downturn in there countries in order to continue financing there ideological beliefs that money that they do not have should flow constantly and be spent on businesses and services that are better run in the private sector. What has that led too?

You can thank the Labour party for destroying Britain and many other left wing parties in Europe for destroying there respective national budgets and realistic conservative governments have been voted in each time to clean up the mess.

The previous government didnt run the country to the ground because they followed conservative economic policies.....infact what they did was something very typical of the European left. The Greek conservatives are clearly very immoral people incapable of telling the truth, who thought spending other peoples money and then hiding it would enrich them and it is not something you can pin on conservative values and be taken seriously.
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and interesting enough all of this sounds very familiar to somethinga little closer to home here in the states
 
shades said:
and interesting enough all of this sounds very familiar to somethinga little closer to home here in the states
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Its not a European leftist thing believe me, its leftists in general.
 
PeteEU said:
Just saying that is what they are saying... it might or might not be rational but that is how they are feeling and saying.[/QU

They are like children having a temper tantrum because Mommy (the state) won't give them their allowance.

People have become economically illiterate, and the same holds true in other western nations.. Few can get their financial house in order yet the people will continue to ask for more services. Genuine leadership often requires that the government says No before these points are reached but politicians are often fearful of not getting re-elected should they take this position.
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PeteEU said:
No. Moving to the Euro was not a mistake. The world needed a counter weight to the US dollar not to mention the positives of having a currency union for business and competition.

The mistake was allowing Greece into the Euro because Greece was not ready at all and lied about many things.
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It too bad the EU wasn't efficient enough to check over the paperwork before allowing Greece into the Union. They should have done the same with several others until the EU was just the UK, Germany and France, all traditional allies.
 
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