Amidst the larger story that is the Greek Crisis, there’s a very personal touching one that came about when a Greek-Australian learned of a 77 year old Greek man who discovered he could no longer get his pension.
Lest we forget though, here’s a sober analysis of the insanity that appears to have gripped many of the Greek people (podcast).
The referendum was meaningless = the fallacious appearance of democracy on a economic question with only one answer. The vote meant different things to different people – some thought they were voting to keep their pensions and social entitlements – others thought it was a referendum about dumping the EU – in any case, no one will lend a economic basket case with no ability to repay what they borrow. Greece never had the productive capacity to survive the loans that were given it – it is Greece’s lack of productivity (which cannot keep pace with the productivity needed to stay in the EU)
The guy in this interview nailed it – Greece’s leadership saw that the only way to support the current system is to go back to a local currency (and fiat supply) and make the economy fully local – a Greek drachma will have value in Greece only where it will buy the locally produced needs of living. When you reject the IMF you reject globalism and globalist interdependent economics – this is the best course for self sustaining nations – Poland did it, Iceland did it,
The key to independence is self sufficiency – we will see if Greece can muster enough of this to run a sustainable local economy. The whole Greek crisis is a result of unsound banking practices at the highest levels which destabilized Europe and will have ripples here.
there we have the problem with allowing governments to pay people for doing nothing and borrowing money to do so. will Canadians weep for their brethren when the same thing happens here because of too much government and unsustainable government spending, or, will Canadians continue to elect socialists who promise everything, and are more than willing to burden future generations for their moronic policies. I am prepared to think it will be the latter.
Tough one. Why should a man learn to fish if they know that a fish will be provided for him every day? If the fisherman leaves or dies, who then takes on the responsibility to supply the fish… or is there one? This is a dilemma that has bothered me for some time on third-world aid “adoption” style assistance – if the child would not have survived without my assistance, and they grow up to have the average six kids for their home nation, I feel an obligation upon me (and my children) to continue the support. I want to help, but I want it to be help, not just another shot of heroin into the addict’s arm (which will make them feel better for the moment but delays and makes for a harsher reckoning).
As sad as the individual cases are (and there are a lot more that won’t have happy endings) there comes a time to act as a grown-up. It’s possible to do everything the right way, to always vote the right way, and still have a horrible system imposed on you (Ontario, BC, now Alberta being high profile cases). Galt’s Gulch sounds nice, but it’s also a Utopia (no-where). Modern society and production depends upon integrated systems to work. If the system breaks in one spot, expect other systems to break in others. Survivalists may well survive, but they’ll be living a bleaker life and ultimately, their supplies will run down and out. The old lecture of “no one can build a pencil by themselves” comes to mind – we don’t think about all of the little things that are created / grown / bought / shipped / moulded / formed / transformed / placed / used to make all of the things that we use in our daily lives. Our lives are easier because we live in a mutually supporting system. We live better than kings did 100 years ago. And because many have no sense of responsibility to those who have come before us and worked so hard to build our society up, we risk it.
Which brings us back to Greece. Those who are selfish will have no problem being parasites. Greek birth rates aren’t at replacement levels. When you’re willing to outsource your future then there’s not much hope for your present. I’m trying to raise my kids to be productive. Because I care for their souls. I won’t go Galt because that’s teaching my kids to run away. I will keep discussing politics / ethics / consequences for any who will listen because we are all in this together, and just occasionally I can see a light bulb go on over someone’s head. Keep your stick on the ice.
When the entitled to their entitlements numbers of people, outnumber the proud, working people, the inverted cone will topple. Proud people go out everyday and try to set an example and feed their families/ children by being productive, after watching the useless of society rape and murder steal whatever , get a slap on the wrist or if they do jail time they get free food and dental in jail, we have generational welfare, we have young that won’t work so as the productive sees all the handouts to the useless, they start working under the system and not paying as much in taxes, thats what has happened to Greece and France will be next along with the other socialist lazys. A democracy will only last until the useless lazys and government workers outnumber the private business people. Retirement with full pay at 50 or 55 where in the private business world does that happen.
Some food for thought courtesy of Father Raymond de Souza’s National Post column today:
A pillar of the environmentalist movement is the imposition of stringent austerity measures to “protect” the planet from man.
The Greeks have perhaps just demonstrated what the general public thinks about being subjected to such measures.
Sometimes it’s really hard to discern what is the horse and what is the cart.
“Greece has German standards of living, but Greek productivity”
“Do not join the Euro – that would be suicide”
The principle motivator for any nation to join the Euro zone was a very broad “We can benefit from this”. The productive nations viewed it as a chance to boost their economies through improved marketing opportunities – others (more inclined to sloth and laziness) saw it as a chance to hit up the rich guys for cash to squander.
From the start it was doomed to break down into a chronic parasite/host thing… with predictable results.
I was living in the UK when the euro was introduced. Whenever I went over to the continent, I’d often get pestered about why Britain decided to retain the pound.
I’d always respond, “You know, I love being able to putter around Europe without having to change my money every time I cross a border. But that’s just personal convenience, not fiscal policy; I’m less convinced about surrendering national control over money supply. I think the Brits have made the right choice to stay out of this one.”
Amen to that.
Isn’t living all about the allocation of resources to meet the most important needs.
We have been told for decades that principal does not apply to government, to simplistic. Never understood that.
When resources do not match expenditure then debt occurs. We have had people in our society who have advocated ‘charging’ excesses for many decades. These people never seem to have to pay the piper. The threat faced by global debt is that conditions are not the same as the ’30’s. Governments and the people are massively in debt, not the case in 1929. FDR’s solution was based on government spending (sound familiar) to jump start the economy and to overcome a huge loss of confidence. If current governments have already spent their ‘wad’ then how can continued spending occur with any confidence that the debt will be paid? At some point it will end badly.
Before I feel bad for the old man I would like to know a couple things – mainly, what was his role in all this? I’ll bet that you find that his vote was always for sale to the highest bidder. I’ll bet that when those politicians bribed him for his vote, he couldn’t have cared less about how those politicos planned to pay for it. If he’s your typical leftist Euro-wank, he’ll whine about how he paid into the system and isn’t getting anything out. How about a picture of the young 20-somethings that can’t get jobs because business is getting strangled with taxes to pay for gold plated pensions for baby boomers? How about pictures of bloated snivel servants rioting, burning and murdering (yes, murdering) because they lost their ‘Golden Fridays’.
Look awfully hard at that old fart, Canada – because if you are 50 or younger, chances are real good you will be in the same boat that old boy is in. Don’t blame the banks either – if you borrow from them you accept their terms and conditions. The Greeks could have prevented this a dozen times over but they kicked the can down the road. The Greeks did what they did knowing full well the consequences – but they kept going.
The best person to look after you is YOU. If you are going to trust a bunch of filthy, corrupt socialists care for you in your retirement – you will get exactly what you deserve.
Thank you C Miner.
Let’s analyze this.
The old man is of course distraught about his situation. Probably sees no bright future, maybe alone in the world. It would be depressing to anyone.
Nobody knows, they won’t report.
As always without fail, the news manufacturers don’t, won’t tell the whole story. It would lose the drama and would lose interest of the “social justice” constructors. It would be a non-story.
What can be derived from the article that the poor man could not get his pension out of the bank since the socialists constructed the society to control it.
The banks the Bilderberg cabal and other such rich socialists need people like him. They can point and say they need the money from the producing, working people to help. So they urge governments to tax the producers.
The Calgary Herald, the talk radio, they, on constant bases help the NDP, calling for more and more taxes. It is never to say that the government should stop wasting other people’s money. Just tax more. There are those in the news manufacturing that will say the waste is negligible, it does not amount to much.
Yeah, how much is not too much?
They will run interference every time.
The story of this man is very sad.
There is more to the story, most of the story will remain silenced.
Does not fit the narrative.
It is 100% result of socialism. There is no doubt about it. None. Zero.
Strangely, people seem to like it. Check out the last Alberta election.
Hell, check out the last election in Venezuela, they are going from poor to dirt poor and still want the same communist government.
Boggles ones mind.
Will we see greece have its own Great Depression just like america back in 1929?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/greece-struggles-to-get-citizens-to-pay-their-taxes-1424867495
The article points out that fully 1/4 of Greek GDP is in the underground economy. The Greek government refuses to police the collection of tax owed to government.
Reduce government, the answer is so simple.
What Glenfithie said. This man probably sold his vote to “highest bidder” forsaking the most common sense question–who will pay for all this stuff? It sounds harsh…but most people are the authors of their own destinies.
“It is 100% result of socialism. There is no doubt about it. None. Zero.
Strangely, people seem to like it. Check out the last Alberta election.
Hell, check out the last election in Venezuela, they are going from poor to dirt poor and still want the same communist government.
Boggles ones mind.” Oh so well said, as was C Minor’s comment
So many great comments above.
The old man in the photo personifies the end result of socialism and by looking in the mirror we can see his reflection. Socialism is a lie.
The previous dozen or so commenters make more sense than all the G&M, CBC, BBC, CNN, so call news items of the last few weeks combined.
Lev, especially, nails it with
[ Let’s analyze this. The old man is of course distraught about his situation. Probably sees no bright future, maybe alone in the world. It would be depressing to anyone.
Nobody knows, they won’t report.
As always without fail, the news manufacturers don’t, won’t tell the whole story. It would lose the drama and would lose interest of the “social justice” constructors. It would be a non-story.
What can be derived from the article that the poor man could not get his pension out of the bank since the socialists constructed the society to control it.
The banks the Bilderberg cabal and other such rich socialists need people like him. They can point and say they need the money from the producing, working people to help. So they urge governments to tax the producers.]
Remember Lebanon?
Greece is facing economic warfare and is going to lose badly.
Already the relatives in Canada and elsewhere are working on getting there families out so we can support them here.
The pressure on North America to support these failed cultures around the world is going to be huge. The problem is these losers don’t adjust their thinking, they bring it here and preach and promote it to the naive North Americans, and what do we do, elect NDP and Liberal type governments so we can go down the same path.
The plight of many of the elderly Greek pensioners really is tragic; these are not the modern social-welfare Greeks but the ones who worked hard all their lives for a pittance.
Now they’ve been cheated out of their small pension by the profligacy of their own government and their children.
“…the Bilderberg cabal…”
Doubtless next we’ll hear about how the Jews are behind all this.
What we see happening in Greece today is the “Lifeboat” paradigm. At what point does the lifeboat become too small to save all that require saving? C Miner feels an obligation to continue “saving” even to the point of requiring his children to assume this ‘debt’. There comes a point in time when hard and fast decisions must be made and sacrifices must be made. Thomas Paine’s statement “These are the times that try men’s souls” has echoed throughout history and great leaders throughout history have risen to the occasion. Today however there are no leaders in Europe that have the ability to make the hard and fast decisions that are required and therefore we will soon find ourselves in a lifeboat that is too small.
A number of Canadians already realize that we are in that ‘lifeboat’ and we’re bailing as fast as we can but we’re losing the battle. At some point we as individual Canadians are going to have to make a decision to either stop bailing or ‘jettison the deadwood’. A very hard decision, yes, one that will try our souls, but as the picture of the gentleman in Greece portrayed the ‘iceberg’ is already on the horizon, and we know that there aren’t big enough ‘lifeboats’ to go around.
Every time someone suggests that government should “do something”, you inch closer to this situation. It is inevitable that robbing Peter to pay Paul leaves Peter poorer and less inclined to produce. Voting for the same thing only puts an immoral veneer of legitimacy over the arrangement.
You see Buildeberg is a town in Germany or somewhere there.
Got nothing to do with ethnicity,
However if you looking for brownie points, all power to you.
An elderly Greek man breaks down and cries outside a bank because he can’t withdraw his 160 Euro pension payment.
To put that tragedy into perspective – that the poor and elderly are truly being crushed by this crisis – I would like to know if Tspiras and other senior Greek government “employees” have access to their money. Because we are shown Greeks partying in the streets while drinking beer shortly after the “No” vote, journalists calling the mood in Athens “business as usual” and yet we see these images of people who have all but given up.
It’s hard to know what is really happening in Greece. Are they partying or starving?
I wonder if he feels bad for the next generation that won’t be getting jack shit, let alone $800 a month.
Me? First thing I noticed was how well dressed he was. Not that all pensioners should be in sackcloth and ashes…but the image underlines Greece’ dilemma…..German lifestyle with Greek productivity.
Short days and short weeks is not a recent innovation in Greece.
Remember this guy was getting 14 monthly payments….
I recall driving in Eastern Europe before the collapse….noonish stopped in a town for lunch…..the restaurant was closed….for lunch.
ewe must be one of them thar Joo hatin Kristians.
Actually JJM, the Israel and the greeks are good buddies, butt the Greeks are generally too dumb to learn from their betters. As a female pundit once pointed out, “it’s the Mediterranean mentality”, and that includes the Greeks. Also include the porkchops and croates. These ppl are largely chest pounding idiots.
Sometimes, all you can do is dance.
Zorba’s dance
He is dressed like an upper middle class American.
He hasn’t missed any meals either.
I saw this exact same picture of this exact same man last week on the Dailymail.UK before Sunday’s vote.
There will be innocent Greek casualties, people who paid their taxes and saved their money or were too young to have made any of the decisions that have lead to the current Greek national trajectory.
That’s life.
It’s also life that the Leftist western media will be trotting out many of these pictures/stories in the near future to make us FEEL that we should do something to help these people.
Just remember that the current Greek communist government isn’t the first Greek communist government that Greece has had and that helping Greece means harming our own chances of economic survival until something is done about the root cause of this particular tragedy.
The cause is socialism.
The Europeans brought this calamity down upon their heads; maybe they wil learn a lesson.
Thing is, we don’t know if the man is a drone or worked hard his entire life. No idea whether he voted for all the socialist goodies or against. No idea if it’s just his pension or his entire life savings. Point being that even those that did all the right things have access to their money cut off and in all probability have lost it all. By the time many people realized the banks might shut down and leave them stranded it was already too late. This is a large net that caught the good, the bad and the slowest. Many Greeks might have suspected the government was in big trouble but had faith that some deal or other would be worked out. History largely forgotten and feeding on socialist propaganda made it the perfect storm that will go far beyond Greece. It’s inevitable that the storm is heading our way too, so, I for one will avoid the temptation to pile on the average Greek. Just as many that voted against the Ontario liberals, the Alberta NDP or Obama will suffer along with those who did. Many are aware of the danger any election will bring, but far too many will vote for Hillary, Mulcair, Trudeau or even the Lizard in the coming election. We can be Greece without even trying. In Canada we will know shortly.
PS, love the numbers in Captcha…..hate the letters.
“You see Buildeberg [sic] is a town in Germany or somewhere there.”
1. No. It’s the name of the hotel in the Netherlands where the first meeting was held in 1954.
2. It always helps your argument if you can spell it properly too.
Ah, good ol’ NME666.
I don’t doubt that at some point the comments in SDA are eventually going to be reduced to you and “old news” ranting away incoherently about this, that and the other.
We once lived next door to a lovely Greek couple in Vancouver.
They invited us over from time to time for a BIG FAT feast.
I vividly remember the food but even more vividly their huge enjoyment telling us “funny” stories about benefit fraud in the homeland.
The funniest one was about the taxi driver receiving a disability pension for … blindness.
A veritable knee-slapper.
That’s 25+ years ago. I’ve never forgotten it and and therefore, like many wise commenters above, I have decidedly mixed feelings about this story.
My first job out of college was with social sercurity. I learned then that the us social security system was and still is a ponzi. Governments shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near an individuals “savings”.
love the numbers too
Cheat sheet in English
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33434497
I can feel sorry for him regardless of his choices as a Greek voter over the course of his life. Actually, perhaps I would feel more sorry for him if I knew he is one of the majority that has contributed to his country making wrong choices for in that case all sympathy is all I would give him.
I agree with your analysis and your last sentence.
Margaret Berger, we discovered when visiting Ukraine and Russia that the average person has only one or two sets of good clothes that they wear out in public. The rest of the time they wear shabby old stuff. I suspect that this is also true for most of the rest of eastern Europe and most likely much of southern Europe also. It is only north-western Europeans and North Americans that have multiple choices in wearing apparel every morning.
The poor and the elderly are just collateral damage when socialists are on a long march and shouting “forward”.
It is good to see some superior intlligece at work
In case you are a lawyer, you have no contribution to this except bullshit.
If not you get a pass.
Your first comment is full of garbage.
Eat it and ……
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150708/1024346003.html
report said UK cut welfare cheq lead to death of citizen
what is this going with politician? recently?
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/07/07/419234/Yemen-mosque-attack-navy-yemen
so much killing is going on every where.
this is obvious saudi behind this.
Antenor – one minor quibble with your paraphrasing: I had noted the third world adoption case to illustrate the circumstances in which I would be responsible. If I assume the role of supplier of fish (to use my first example) then I should not be surprised if the person I am supplying becomes dependent upon me. “Dependent” has multiple meanings. If I am moral, and raise my kids to be moral, then my kids will not be willing to let my others dependants die when I am no longer able to care for them. That was the context.
In the general sense, I have not agreed to supply fish to anyone except my kids, therefore I do not accept the mantle of having to supply either the necessities or the luxuries of life to any except them. Government will take and tax as they see fit, “render unto Caesar” and all that. I have no choice in that. But if I chose to go Galt then I’m willingly supplying less to my kids, and also removing an important cog from the machinery of the company I work for, a company that interfaces with other companies. If too many cogs from too many machines go missing, then the economy crashes to the detriment of all.
Does that explain my approach better than the original post?
Wait until the whole world goes UN money…It will be the Obama-looking-
down-at-you face on the front of the bill and on the back, a picture of the Chinese guy in front of the tank with the threatening caption “Less YOU forget”.
The brave new world of the Eloi is coming.
“What’s wrong with you to think such things, you have a smartphone don’t you”?
You seem to imply that taxation and more taxation is at the heart of Greece’s problems. However, the Greek people do NOT pay taxes – certainly not to the extent that you think they do. The number of highly-paid Greeks who declare they have a poverty-level income and don’t pay taxes is staggering. Tax evasion is a national sport in Greece and that, combined with the country’s exceedingly generous social programs, led to the present mess.
Debts that can’t be repaid, won’t be.
Promises that can’t be kept, won’t be.
The Gods of the Copybook Headings are remorseless and impersonal.
Plan accordingly.
Check out Greek tax rates for ordinary Ιωσήφ (that means Joe).
No one who is honest can afford to pay their taxes and survive. It’s even worse than Canada under Chretien, and Ontario under Bob Rae. (That is when I left Canada.)
Greek taxes are uncollectable without causing homelessness and starvation. So, they are not collected.
The Greek governments, both socialist and conservative did not borrow money to support social welfare. They borrowed to steal it. The Greek taxpayers have to pay it.
Not another penny for Greece until the leaders of the previous political parties, and the leaders of the public sector unions are hanging from lamp posts.