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Torquemada
06 Jun 15 16:11
Joined:
Date Joined: 27 Apr 12
| Topic/replies: 4,760 | Blogger: Torquemada's blog
Saw a report yesterday that said their health system is operating on 6% of its usual funding!  Now, everyone knows they've largely brought this cash crisis on themselves, but surely things like this can't be allowed to continue, it's inhumane. 

What should be done?  Trouble is, of course, let the Greeks off the debts and all those others in hock will obviously expect the same.  What a mess!  Break the whole lot up and abandon the Euro?

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Replies: 20
By:
PatraTheCat
When: 06 Jun 15 17:21
Fascinating siuation, rather darkly so for Greece.

My opinion, uninformed though it may be, is that there are ultimately three outcomes:

1. Greece eventually pays its debts off itself.
2. Greece's creditors write off lots of the debt and effectively bail it out.
3. Greece defaults and leaves the Euro.

1 seems very unlikely ("In the highly unlikely event that Greece could generate a 2% or 3% [budget] surplus year-in and year-out without its economy shrinking further (which few economists would anticipate), it would take around half a century for Greek public sector debt to fall to a level regarded as sustainable", according to Robert Peston (http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32989534)

2 seems unthinkable due to the precedent it would set.

So it's 3.
By:
Burton-Brewers
When: 06 Jun 15 17:24
they'll be ok they've got loads of migrants arriving everyone knows what a boost to the economy they are.
By:
alun2005
When: 06 Jun 15 17:32
Indeed B-B.  I haven't heard ONE political/media/lefty pundit telling us (yet) that Greece's problems can be resolved by bringing in 7 million immigrants or more from Somalia.

Did Immigration suddenly become a bad thing then?
By:
Foinavon
When: 06 Jun 15 17:47
There is a 4th way Patra the cat.
Greece's creditors don't actually write off the debt, they just keep deferring the payments so the debts are neither serviced nor paid. This way they avoid setting a precedent for other debtor nations and theoretically help Greece get back on it's feet.
By:
Eeternaloptimist
When: 06 Jun 15 17:51
Funnily enough I was thinking a fourth option would be, to use the overused phrase, to find a way of kicking the can down the road again. What Foinavon suggests would seem as likely a scenario as any in the short term but who knows? Certainly not the people of Europe. They will be the last to know.
By:
Foinavon
When: 06 Jun 15 18:03
German taxpayers wouldn't be happy that's for sure. You work long hours on the production line in the car factory then pay your taxes only to see the money given to the Greeks so that they can keep buying the cars you make.
The Greeks themselves are not renowned for paying their taxes which is part of the reason why they continue to be in hock to the Germans.
By:
Foinavon
When: 06 Jun 15 18:06
All the thanks they get at the end of the day is to be called Nazis just for wanting their own money back. Laugh
By:
Eeternaloptimist
When: 06 Jun 15 18:21
The bottom line which Europe cannot address in the short term is that Germans think like and think they are Germans and all the other countries feel a sense of identity with their own homeland and national identity. Consequently, there is no desire to help out their fellow Europeans. In terms of scale the biggest entity people seem able to buy into is a nation and unless Europe can find a way of engendering that sense of nationhood then the north will continue to resent paying to the south and the south will continue to resent the north for needing it. America had to go through a civil war and a couple of centuries of history all within a completely new country for different peoples within the country to accept their need to assist their fellow Americans. It's an exceptionally hard sell for the European elite.
By:
numer0ne
When: 06 Jun 15 20:49
Bring back slave labor. Have a roulette wheel decide which ones get sold into it. God, do I have to think of everything?
By:
Ibrahima Sonko
When: 06 Jun 15 21:30
I think they should send in Ed Millaband, he claimed so much a month ago. Seems a no brainer.
By:
Eeternaloptimist
When: 06 Jun 15 21:37
Puts me in mind of that insurance advert a while ago about turning a calamity into a disaster. Laugh
By:
maleuk01.
When: 06 Jun 15 22:55
another option, is not to let the greeks retire at 55-57 on full pension.

and those earning actually pay some taxes.

problem sorted. Aint that hard.
By:
G1_Jockey_4
When: 07 Jun 15 00:22
German taxpayers wouldn't be happy that's for sure.

fk the germanz.
they owe a few for the world war.

think they should be paying the bubbles back properly and anyone else they fked about with.
By:
Eeternaloptimist
When: 07 Jun 15 00:42
Nearly a century ago and we are still talking about the war. Laugh
By:
G1_Jockey_4
When: 07 Jun 15 12:45
fkn right Laugh

they must never forget
By:
mobo
When: 07 Jun 15 14:57
we can forget the war  but we will be told never to forget dresden!!!

adolf who!!???
By:
mobo
When: 07 Jun 15 14:58
and how many of you still haven't apologised for slavery!!??
By:
numer0ne
When: 07 Jun 15 15:47
you might say slavery still exists (well it does, but I mean in the mainstream)
By:
bongo
When: 07 Jun 15 15:58
They could stop subsidising agriculture, that would save a few bob.

The only EU country with soil warm enough to grow saffron apparently ( pound for pound one of the world's most expensive herbs ) but do they grow and export any, do they feck. The farmers would rather get paid for not innovating, just like ours. The EU saffron supply all comes from Iran and further east.
By:
spellingandgrammarchecker
When: 07 Jun 15 18:36
I liked Olivia Neutron Bomb in it.
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