Can you, in one paragraph or less, tell me what's going on with Greece?

[whynotchris]

They owe money.

To who? How much?

How can they repay it?

What is the situation for Greeks living in Greece at the moment? What are the ramifications for the owed nations if it cannot be repaid?

[SirRobin]

Here is part of it.



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Here is another.



They call it the Euro Area in the video but I usually hear it called Euro Zone instead.

[JohnBrown1917]

Shits fucked yo'

[anveena]

The lazy bums don't want to pay their debt.

[Deleted]

Nationwide tax evasion, retirement at the age of 50 and producing nothing together dont make for a stable economy, so it appears. The Greek now think they wont get buttraped if they dissaprove of the bailout plan.

Thats about it.

[Feali]

Politics and shit.

[icausewipes]

They be broke.

[Ealyssa]

Banks made a shit ton of money betting against a country.

This country also has some massive fiscal and corruption problems.

Combine both, had a (big) pinch of imposed austerity. Stir with democracy. Voilà your Greek cocktail is done.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Spending too much time trying to conquer Persia.

[Deleted]

No winter that hardens them.

[taliey]

Greece shouldn't have been in the Euro to begin with.

Greece was fraudulently reporting their numbers to enter into the Euro, and once they got in, the Eurozone realized how fucked up Greece's books was.

Then the recession, queue austerity measures (the troika especially) a depression later, and now we have the 'Grexit' happening.

[cubby]

Greece shouldn't have been in the Euro to begin with.

Greece was fraudulently reporting their numbers to enter into the Euro, and once they got in, the Eurozone realized how fucked up Greece's books was.

Then the recession, queue austerity measures (the troika especially) a depression later, and now we have the 'Grexit' happening.

Even worse, Goldman Sachs (not sure if correct "bank" but one of the biggies) bought up Greece's debt so Greece could qualify for the EU. The bank then secured first payments on that debt when Greece started trying to pay back their creditors. Greece has rampant tax evasion and under funded social programs which continue to increase their debt. They use only the Euro for currency (in contrast, Britain uses both the Pound and the Euro) and so everything costs whatever Germany and France says it does. Greece will more than likely get kicked out of the EU, which will be good for them. Greece can then bring back the Drachma (???), set their own currency value, and vastly improve their economy.

[SirRobin]

Greece shouldn't have been in the Euro to begin with.

Greece was fraudulently reporting their numbers to enter into the Euro, and once they got in, the Eurozone realized how fucked up Greece's books was.

Then the recession, queue austerity measures (the troika especially) a depression later, and now we have the 'Grexit' happening.

If I recall correctly there was "creative accounting" used by other countries' too like Spain, Portugal, and Italy. In fact, take all the countries that "fibbed" their way into the EU out of it? And there wouldn't have been one to begin with. That wouldn't have mattered if Greece and their creditors had foreseen the financial meltdown. Of course most didn't and suddenly the EU finds itself in a financial fourth reich.

[fengosa]

Greeks have god awful work and moral ethics.

Had a feeling this thread would go this way before I opened it

Greeks are lazy. This underlies much of what is said about the crisis, the implication presumably being that our lax Mediterranean work-ethic is at the heart of our self-inflicted downfall. And yet, OECD data show that in 2008, Greeks worked on average 2120 hours a year. That is 690 hours more than the average German and 467 more than the average Brit. Only Koreans work longer hours. The paid leave entitlement in Greece is on average 23 days, lower than the UK’s minimum 28 and Germany’s whopping 30.

The figure of 53 years old as an average retirement age is being bandied about. So much so, that it is has become folk-fact. It originates from a lazy comment on the New York Times website. It was then repeated by Fox News and printed in other publications. Greek civil servants have the option to retire after 17.5 years of service, but this is on half benefits. The figure of 53 is a misinformed conflation of the number of people who choose to do this (in most cases to go on to different careers) and those who stay in public service until their full entitlement becomes available.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Greece is full of pure awesome and that's all you need to know.

But the short of iris they need money the EU has money, they won't give Greece any money until Greece pays back some money and Greece just gave the EU the finger and think Russia might give them some money.

[Deleted]

Had a feeling this thread would go this way before I opened it

The big lie about it is that the media conflates public and private sector. :>

Greece is full of pure awesome and that's all you need to know.

But the short of iris they need money the EU has money, they won't give Greece any money until Greece pays back some money and Greece just gave the EU the finger and think Russia might give them some money.

What if mexico wants your money because they run out?

[Doctor Amadeus]

Greeks have god awful work and moral ethics.

The Greek are beautiful wonderful people and it's time to actually help them out instead of just throwing money at the problem.

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The big lie about it is that the media conflates public and private sector. :>


What if mexico wants your money because they run out?

Mexico is completely different.

[Deleted]

Mexico is completely different.

The people bailing them out have as much authority about greek fiscal politic as you have on the mexican. Zero!

[Doctor Amadeus]

The people bailing them out have as much authority about greek fiscal politic as you have on the mexican. Zero!

Which is to say a lot because in addition to giving Mexico money we send jobs there too.

[Nadiru]

Greece was let into the Eurozone and EU under the pretense that it had better financial data than it did. When global financial markets tanked, Europe was hit particularly hard due to some banking shenanigans involving selling mortgages for European properties, but paid in non-Euro currencies, including but not limited to the Japanese Yen, Swiss Franc, and both the Canadian and Australian Dollar. Greece, along with a bunch of other countries, were told that they had to implement austerity reforms to curb public spending and increase their domestic savings rate, which had been deemed too high by the EU central bank.

The Greek government mostly, but not totally complied, and things got a lot worse for the Greek citizen because the Greek government like many European governments, provided a large number of services to its citizens. Greece went back and forth between asking for new loans to help keep the government afloat and having to implement new austerity measures, which made Greek citizens even more vulnerable which made the government ask for new loans. This repeated until the Greek government and people had had enough, and voted "no" for a bailout referendum.