So Greece voted no in the referendum. And the results were quite heavily in favour of the No Vote. When 2 hours before it was predicted to be a close 51% to 49% in favour of No. Quite a difference.
61.3% Voted no with 38.7% going to the yes vote.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33403665
A lot of different opinions coming from both sides.
Tsipras obviously still wants in on the EU and the Eurozone but many on the other side feel that this referendum was an insult to the creditors. And that we could be heading for a Grexit. That would mean a return to the Drachma. But Tsipras seems very adamant that he wants to stay within the EU and the Eurozone. Who knows what will happen now.
Having kinda put the boot in earlier with the look at the situation, I think it's only fair to make sure there is some balance here, as it's not fair to portray the Greeks as terminally lazy. It's true that they have an absurdly generous early pensions system that, basically, the Government couldn't actually afford, which is an issue, and non-payment of taxes is certainly a big deal- though it's not Greece alone that has that issue; a lot of southern and eastern Europe has issues with the tax base.
But as I have seen pointed out of late, general populace tax evasion (as opposed to high level corporate versions we worry about in the west) is a natural reaction to corrupt government; decades of crappy communist rule caused the problem in Eastern Europe and Greece, likewise, has gone through generations of blatantly corrupt administrations gathering their own money and giving favours to friend and family. It wasn't even the most extreme of those corrupt governments that caused the current situation- of faking the figures needed to get into the Euro and then borrowing lie crazy on the false idea that they were now indestructible- but that a Greek government did something so nuts is,sadly, not exceptional.
So it's really not the average Greek in the street that is causing this issue. A generous public sector hamstrung Greece in many ways but it wouldn't have crippled it had the government not blown it for several decades in a row, culminating in this crisis. Little wonder the Greeks don't want to give up their perks for errors not of their own making (unless you count voting for parties as a form of responsibility- in which case, maybe, but I am unsure if they had not decent choices). Sadly, though, they probably don't have any choice in the matter.
And that's the problem with the current Greek administration too- basically promising things to the Greek people that just can't happen. Something is going to have to give.
The horrible irony here is that joining the Euro was meant to usher in a new era of stable government for Greece that would start to unwind generations of distrust that had eroded the tax base- but it has pretty much caused the opposite.
Honestly, the problem is that the current Greece government is doing the equivalent of saying everyone can go to the moon. "We voted for it" does not override reality.
They are promising a. to keep the generous social system b. to have the debts greatly reduced or cancelled and c. to stay in the Euro. Wanting all three is the mad promise of paradise- of course people want to vote for it, but it can't be done!
Something has to give. If it is by negotiation, it is a mix of a and b. Else, it will be c.
Interesting read. Sad but true.
http://www.nationofchange.org/2015/07/05/greece-what-you-are-not-being-told-by-the-media/
Originally posted by Flyattractor
[b]The U.S is 20 Trillion in the hole and we don't seem to give a shit. Why should being broke bother Greece or the EU? [/B]
The situations are massively different. We have a healthy and growing economy. Healthy nations can handle debt-to-GDP ratios much bigger than ours- we aren't even at record levels, and Japan has around twice the debt-to-GDP ratio, and even so they're in no danger of default.
We could, fairly easily, raise taxes a little and start knocking the debt down in short order.
Anyone who thinks we're near defaulting doesn't get how our economy and debt works. It's not just 'having a big debt'. The only possible way we could default in the foreseeable future is if the Republican party decided to throw the economy off a cliff which would be extremely horrible for no gain whatsoever but some are so entrenched in misunderstanding how the debt works that they don't care.
Some economists actually think it should be higher, as it doubles as a stabilizing asset that gets traded, and interest rates are so low that people buying it are essentially paying us to hold their money. Which is... not a bad thing for us!
The Greeks, on the flip side, don't just need debt relief, or a little taxes, they need restructuring or it'll happen again. Their debt is of questionable value, they don't have the money generating mechanism that is the US, they haven't been cracking down on tax evasion, etc..
Originally posted by Omega Vision
My parents lived in Greece for several years. They said the Greeks combine laziness, serial lateness, and a disregard for public and personal health and safety (smoking all the time, never wearing helmets when biking or on motorcycles)Edit: I feel like when conservatives in the US decry "lazy liberals" and "welfare mothers" they're not really talking about actual Americans in any great number, just an imagined bane to America's economy, but many Greeks actually embody these tropes.
The actual numbers of people on welfare are surprisingly impressive. Single-digit percentage of people in the system don't work or try and get work- and that includes people who due to injury are incapable of working, like the elderly and the badly injured. Something like one in twenty actually is just lazing on welfare, and trying to make more hoops to jump through to stop them actually negatively affects all those other people who are putting in the work.
The 'welfare queen' thing really is a boogieman much more than a reality in the US. If you dig, you can find them, but they're a small enough minority that it often costs more catching them than they receive anyway, so it's usually not worth the effort, and I mean not worth the effort entirely in the financial/money sense.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33491776
Ok so now the problem is, the Greeks are suddenly offering so much, the rest of the Eurozone is not actually sure if they can believe it.