Greek Crisis Poll

As a Greek living outside Greece, I would vote for the measures because I am aware of the uncontrolled public spending.

On the other hand some (and I say only some) of the protesters are right to complain - the money need to be returned first by those who spent it illegally

Protesters of course.

I'm a 20 year old Greek. The whole country is a huge whor*house, there are no laws, no justice, politicians and rich people steal with full support by the media, middle class people dream about getting a job in the state sector, buy plasma TVs and jeeps. The majority of people care only for the reality shows playing every night.
Guys, you should know this: all the money the EU sent all this years became jeeps, villas and anything other than what it should be. The goverment has 43% of the votes (with total voters about 60% of the population) and got 160 out of 300 of parliament members! The prime minister is a clown in front of Obama and Merkel with no will to change anything.

BUT this isn't (only) Greek people's fault.
p.e  Germany and France are selling armor to Greece after the loan they gave!
Greece spends more than 6 billion euros on armor every year. It's in the top five WORLDWIDE and top in Europe! For what? In order to deal with a fake enemy like Turkey.
EU gives loans to Greece with higher interest rate than EU is loaning itself etc etc

Bob Marley has a song called "Stand up (for your rights)". Time to make the lyrics true!


Pardon my English.

I go with with Loukanis (Kanellos?) and those siding with him, i.e., the protesters. 

I really hate being this guy, (especially considering a few years ago I would have killed anyone who said what Im about to say) but....

Social Cuts. Personally, opposed to it....but, hating to be the realist, what are the other options? 
It is terrible, and I certainly understand the anger....but it is necessary. What else can be done? Thanks to a huge amount of issued bonds and many years of irresponsible policy (not the people fault of course) Greek loans are now "junk". So no borrowing. How else can the country right its situation?? It is awful, but must be done.

And I agree with Zebedee....a change of mentality is a good thing. I mean this isn't the first time recently there's been riots because of bad economic conditions. Riots? Not to mention a long history of fiscal irresponsibility. Especially if Greece is SERIOUS about the Eurozone. If they are, they need to change to a different mentality.

Long story short: It sucks, and I can understand the peoples anger....BUT the government has no other option but social cuts at this moment.


Edited by JJLehto - May 24 2010 at 22:47

Easy answer -second for sure. We have similar crisis situation on Baltics, government cut salaries and expencies in public sector around 10-15%, we slowly returning back to normal life. We had no riots, street fights and other attractions. It doesn't helps.

If your business is bancrupted because you was too lazy to work properly and had bad management, because you was too lazy to elect better one, no riots will help you to rebuilt your life. You can only cut your expencies and try to learn to work harder and better.

I believe there are big differences in culture and menthality in Northern countries and Southern countries. I lived and worked in both regions for years. If Northern people work hard, speak less and try to count money, Southern people speak a lot, work just a bit and like to spent as much as possible. It's life.

But if one day you're must to pay for your great previous  life (at the account of other nations), it's not a reason to be unhappy. Just time to pay your bills.

There is no nation in the world (at least I never heard about such one), who has pension retirement age from 53 !!!!!! Only Greeks. So - economically super power? Far from that. What is the reason? Why Germans (who know how to work, believe me) , go to retirement from 67?

Have you ever heard (in normal world) about 14 yearly salaries for public workers? No? OK, it's Greece. How you heard about yearly bonuses to public pensioners? Right, it's Greece. I have nothing against, if the country is so economically powerful, that can spent billions on such things. But Greece? Contry with 130 billions euros debt and just 10 millions population. Spending EU (read German and French) money to their dolce vita?

OK, this fairy tale is finished, I think for years for them. It's time to start to live according to income. But - is it a reason for riots?

I didn't watch closely the Greek issue, but I didn't get the feeling the protesters were only against social cuts, but more were expressing anger at the situation, which is a different thing. 

^ Indeed I think the retirement age should be correlated with the life expectancy. But with a 79.5 years expectancy Greece is there at the top of the civilized world, where retirement age is normally at 65 years (which would leave a decade and a half!). I can't see why Greeks complain of this. I mean, the rate of "early retirement" in Greece was absolutely stunning, and the normal retirement age was 61... For contrast, in Romania, also a EU country, the difference between life expectancy for a man and retirement age is of only four (!) years (which puts it somewhere between... Jordan and Sri Lanka) . No wonder why I've moved to a country with an over 80 years life expectancy 

You talk like you were president of a bank or something... I didn't mean that retirement age should be lower only for Greece but for other countries too!




These days I tend to remember a quote from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly saying: "If you work for a living, why do you kill yourself working?"

snobb wrote: Okocha wrote: You talk like you were president of a bank or something... I didn't mean that retirement age should be lower only for Greece but for other countries too! These days I tend to remember a quote from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly saying: "If you work for a living, why do you kill yourself working?" I will agree with you, if you will say who will pay for early retirement. I know only one rule in the people's life - you must pay for everything. If you have enough funds - you don't need to work at all, no need in retirement. All the civilisation history shows us that even with recent retirement average age of 65 the level of pencion size is dramatically low comparing with salaries level. So, you can be retired at 60 or even 58, but it means less working population and more retired, smaller pensions. So? People always would like to have better life conditions, but they need to work hard for centuries first. And it's funny to speak about better conditions if you're in deep debts and have no idea how to return them

All these people living in villas, with private jets and limos spending millions just for fun. All these people who make us work till we are dried up and ready to die with the promise that by working we'll be able to buy a decent life and goods.

For example take a look at football. Recently Real Madrid spent 250 millions euros in order to buy 3-4 players! Ronaldo has a yearly wage of 10 million euros!!! My whole family has 30.000 euros in sum. If you are not good at maths, this means that Ronaldo is paid 333 times more than a family a year!

Bigger countries like US, Germany, France, England, Italy etc have bigger debts than Greece and Portugal but nobody talks about it. How come?
I don't want to speak about civilization history. The biggest part of it is a farse and it's not written by me or you!

Okocha wrote: Bigger countries like US, Germany, France, England, Italy etc have bigger debts than Greece and Portugal but nobody talks about it. How come?

Easy answer- their population is much bigger, they have industry and economics, and they 100% will return their debts. And they work hard for hundred years.

Greece has only 10 millions population, big part of them are children, retired people and public workers (who spend money, don't produce nothing). All world's economists and politics agree in one - Greece with their level of economy and industrialisation has no chances to return back their recent debt. But the problem is deeper - Greece need more money just to live at the same standard they're living till now. What means bigger debt with no ideas how and when to return it back.