Here's what the Greeks are resorting to...

the birthplace of democracy, indeed...



Greece bartering system popular in Volos
BBC News - Greece bartering system popular in Volos

As Greece wonders whether its debt crisis will eventually spell its exit from the euro, one town, Volos, has formed an alternative local currency

A few months ago, an alternative currency was introduced in the Greek port city of Volos. It was a grass-roots initiative that has since grown into a network of more than 800 members, in a community struggling to afford items in euros during a deepening financial crisis.​

I f'n love this. ... Inspiring, if not for the fact that Greece's long nightmare is only just beginning..... No, wait, it's still inspiring: A big fat FU to unfettered, debt-based capitalism and the ruin it's leaving behind as it slowly dies.

That the Greek people have to be at the vanguard as collapse approaches is really some kind of cruel joke. Can't Greece just print up more money like we do to forestall the failure of our monetary system?

Uneregulated banking and derivatives trading in a world of limited natural resources. Great idea, Mr. Friedman!

Who's next? Spain? Italy? Japan? ... It's relentless at this point. But some people are so bubbled, they rationalize: "So? I can still fill my tank and have the intranetz... everything's fine.... Go America!"

 

What destroyed Greece was not Capitalism, but far left wing Socialism where government benefits and handouts overload the system and it collapses under its own Socialistic weight. The entitlements were more than the economy could bear. All the Northern Europeans are pissed and do not want to pay for the greedy Greeks' entitlements.

 

Well that and US investment banks helping them hide their problems. Also the system which is supposed help, now crushing them with ever increasing dept lending rates...

 

was not socialism, it was corporatism, as select entities were granted government privilege to paper over the growing monetary ponzi scheme, making wild profits.

 

Rationalization fail.

Provide one reputable news or economy source that supports this claim that isn't some dumb conservative blog or Friedmanist rag.

 

Jiggs Casey posted:
"...some dumb conservative blog or Friedmanist rag."


Taxcutter says:
I suppose you'd prefer the creatively edited NBC News or the great users of forgery at CBS news.

 

It's funny how by 1991 nearly every country in the world, including the Soviet Union, realized that Communism was a ruined, regressive 19th-Century experiment that failed, and yet, here we are in 2012 having to learn essentially the same thing with Socialism. Greece, Spain, Italy, France, and all these other countries who have lived happily for decades in the idea that "everybody plays; somebody else pays" are now being introduced to the harsh reality you can't just sit on your worthless ass with your hand out and expect the government to give you everything.

When the Welfare State concept was first started (in any country), it should have been made an iron-clad rule that any person taking unearned income or benefits from the government loses the right to vote during the same year that they receive the goodies. Oooh, but that would be lethal to Libocrat Socialists, who depend on the parasite-vote for their very existence....

 

What happened to Greece and Italy and Spain and Portugal etc. is very simple. When they switched over to the Euro they now had credit. Instead of going out and using that credit to improve their economies they went out and bought a German style welfare system entirely in credit. Of course the all those nations don't have the work ethic the Germans do. So they never were able to build the economies to pay for it long term. Eventually the credit ran dry.

 

Do yourself a favor. Use a search engine to dig up some actual information on what has happened in Greece. You clearly know absolutely nothing.

Also, what definition of corporatism are you attempting to apply here?

 

if you want your citizens to be able to retire at age 55 and allow people to collect dissability for the dumbest reasons then you better be prepared to pay for it....this was greece's problem...too many generous social problems and not enough income on the national level to pay for them!

 

When you can't pay on time the loan is rfigured at a higher rate...pure business. pay on time, no increase...simple!

 

yep...paying for someone else debt is uncool...socialization rears its ugly head!

 

If Obama gets re-elected the economy will really tank. Take a lesson from Greece and start gathering items of intrinsic value because the currency will be worthless.

 

True, capital will flee from our shores.


_

 

There is only one problem here...lefties will not believe you untill it is too late then they will want some of what you saved because they didn't...their refusal to understand logic will only make it worse

 

Greece cannot print more money because it does not control the Euro. It's like a state.

Greece is a classic example of what happens when you have Govt expenditures and cut (or more accurately in Greece's case, fail to collect) tax revenues. When tax revenues are below expenditures, the government borrows and borrows.

We saw in here to in the US at least two or three times. Reagan cut revenues and the debt quadrupled over 12 years.

Bush2 cut taxes and a budget surplus he inherited was squandered and the debt doubled.

Obama cut taxes and the deficits exploded.

Do you think Americans will learn the lesson before we end up like Greece?

[video=youtube;WKzGZj32LYc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKzGZj32LYc&feature=player_embedded"]All GOP Candidates Would Walk Away From A 10 to 1 Spending Compromise - YouTube[/video]

Unlikely.

 

They can WANT it but they'll have to GET it....Good luck to 'em.

 

Funny, the economy was supposed to be tanking now because of Obama.

Instead we have gone from economy that was tanking at a -9% real rate, losing 700,000+ jobs a month, unemployment was skyrocketing upward, and crashing stock markets, to an economy that has been growing steadily for more than two years, with private sector jobs created every month for two years, stock markets are up almost 100% from their recession lows, and the unemployment rate has fallen from above 10% to 8.3% with 4 million new private sector jobs Jan 2010.

So sorry if your hollow and baseless predictions don't persuade this time around. Though I'm sure the Obama Obsessed out there will be more than happy to agree with you.

 

Reagan's cuts bolstered the economy however Democratic congresses continued to pass more and more entitlement and 'pork' legislation while, at the same time, Democrats in charge of the Ways and Means committee saw fit to mandate real property loans to the insolvent.

 

The problem has not been "everybody plays; somebody else pays". Had that been the case, they (and we) would not have these huge debt problems.

 

Leftists will not accept the inherent flaws in their ideology unless they have the actual experience of seeing the country collapse. Words won't convince them. They must experience catastrophe before they will believe. But by that point in time it is too late.

 

Save the same old tired, baseless, worn out, propaganda mythology for those ignorant enough to be fooled by it.

 

You think?

Ask how many of our conservative friends here are willing to increase tax revenues to reduce deficits.

Or better yet, ask if any actually even understand what a deficit is.

Conservatives will not accept the inherent flaws in their ideology unless they have the actual experience of seeing the country collapse. Words won't convince them. They must experience catastrophe before they will believe. But by that point in time it is too late.

 

Increased tax revenues would be pissed away to enrich Democratic Party constituencies like labor unions. Leftists don't act in good faith. Thus, it is impossible to achieve anything by compromise. Better to let the country collapse and go our separate ways.