The European Debt Crisis and the Euro - Page 128

On June 04 2013 02:44 WhiteDog wrote:

No it's not, I don't think he understood how it works.
[...]
I don't think zatic is understanding,

On June 04 2013 19:28 WhiteDog wrote:

No you don't understand, the 50% unemployment is WITHOUT the inactivity.

On June 05 2013 00:06 SilentchiLL wrote:





Dude... Attitude.

From The Sky, A View Of Spain's Boom And Bust

Like the U.S. and many other Western countries, Spain's building boom in the previous decade was a major factor in its economic implosion. And now a trio of civil engineers in Spain has created a website that offers a dramatic before-and-after view of the country's construction bubble.

Called Nación Rotonda — "Roundabout Nation," in Spanish — the site displays before-and-after aerial photos of dozens of Spanish towns. Half-built condos, "roads to nowhere" and urban sprawl are juxtaposed with open farmland and forests that stood in their place just a few years ago.

Time to Bet on a Greekovery?

This may not seem like the best time to invest in Greece. The economy has shrunk by more than one-fifth since 2008 and, if private forecasters surveyed by Bloomberg are correct, will see a cumulative decline of 25 percent over seven years -- a catastrophe no rich country has experienced in peacetime since the Great Depression.

On the other hand, as Baron Rothschild put it, the best buying opportunities present themselves "when there is blood in the streets." Those who purchased 30-year Greek government bonds last July (such as Dan Loeb's Third Point) have quadrupled their money. Greek share prices have doubled over the past 12 months.

My colleague Megan Green doesn't think so. Yet the bullish case was made pretty forcefully on June 5 at the Greek Investment Forum in New York City, which I attended. There were two main arguments. First, fiscal tightening, which has done so much to exacerbate the downturn, is set to come to an end sometime in the next year. Christos Staikouras, the alternate minister of finance, noted that this was the largest and fastest budget consolidation ever recorded: Government spending has dropped more than 21 percent since 2009. The International Monetary Fund now forecasts that Greece will have the largest structural budget surplus in the rich world by 2014.

The other bullish argument is that the Greek government has addressed many of the country's "structural imbalances." According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Greece has begun more significant reforms than any other rich country over the past few years, and the World Bank ranked Greece eighth in its "most improved in doing business" survey. ...

On June 08 2013 12:50 Sermokala wrote:
Baron rothschild is a title in the united kingdom. It doesn't refer to any specific person just the rothschild family branch in england.

that being said if greece recoveres too soon it risks becoming an economic sucess story for the austerity movement in europe.

On June 08 2013 12:50 Sermokala wrote:
Baron rothschild is a title in the united kingdom. It doesn't refer to any specific person just the rothschild family branch in england.

that being said if greece recoveres too soon it risks becoming an economic sucess story for the austerity movement in europe.

On June 08 2013 12:50 Sermokala wrote:
Baron rothschild is a title in the united kingdom. It doesn't refer to any specific person just the rothschild family branch in england.

that being said if greece recoveres too soon it risks becoming an economic sucess story for the austerity movement in europe.

ATHENS, Greece — Greece will temporarily close down all its state-run TV and radio stations with a loss of around 2,500 jobs as part of its cost-cutting drive demanded by the bailed-out country's international creditors, the government said Tuesday.

The government said the company will reopen "as soon as possible" with a smaller workforce. It wasn't immediately clear how long that would take, and whether all stations would reopen.

The move heralds the first direct public sector layoffs in more than three years of painful austerity, which have already cost nearly 1 million private sector jobs. The shocking announcement widened cracks in the year-old conservative-led governing coalition, with both minority partners condemning the suspension of Hellenic Broadcasting Corp., or ERT.

"I was hoping up until the last minute that the reports were not true. It's unbelievable," news reader Stavroula Christofiliea said on ERT's main TV live broadcast moments after the news was announced.

About 2,000 ERT employees, other media workers, anti-austerity activists, opposition lawmakers and union leaders gathered in protest at the company headquarters in the Athens suburb of Aghia Paraskevi.

Government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou – a former state TV journalist – described ERT as a "haven of waste" and said its TV and radio signals would go dead early Wednesday. He said its 2,500 employees will be compensated.

On June 12 2013 06:10 Gorsameth wrote:
Our economy is bad. lets put another 2500 people on the street so they cant pay there mortgage and get things even worse.

On June 12 2013 06:47 Bermuda wrote:


They have to do it now because they didn't do it when the economy was good. And they wouldn't do it either if the country was out of the crisis.

But if I think about it for a second : 2500 people working for state sponsored medias, it doesn't make any sense for a country the size of Greece. I have no problem believing the governement spokeman when he says that it's a haven of waste.

Now it's true that due to the timing it will not help the crisis... that's for sure. We should restart the economy first.

On June 12 2013 06:53 Gorsameth wrote:


Ofc bloat is bad and should be changed when possible but as you say the timing is bad. Its the entire problem with austerity, Your not going to recover from a crisis by putting more and more people on the streets so they to cannot pay there bills. It just creates a chain effect.

Greek workers will stage a nationwide strike, forcing hospitals to work on emergency staff and disrupting transport, in protest against the "sudden death" of state broadcaster ERT, switched off in the middle of the night by the government.

Greece's two biggest labour unions plan to bring much of the country to a standstill during the 24-hour strike, beginning on Thursday, against Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's decision to close down ERT, which they describe as "coup-like move ... to gag unbiased information".

The government described its decision to shut the 75-year-old ERT as a temporary move before its relaunch in slimmed-down form.

Simos Kedikoglou, spokesman for the government and a former state TV journalist, has described ERT as a "haven of waste".

"ERT is a typical example of unique lack of transparency and incredible waste. And that ends today," he said.

However, the move has angered the coalition partners keeping Samaras in power, restoring an atmosphere of crisis in a country that had seemed to be emerging from a political meltdown caused by near-bankruptcy.

"In a systematic and autocratic way, the government has abolished the rights of workers and citizens one by one," said the public-sector union ADEDY, which is organising the walkout with its private-sector sister union GSEE.

"We call on every worker and every citizen to fight to overthrow the government's catastrophic plans."

On June 13 2013 13:58 SilentchiLL wrote:


I know that people do stupid things in times of crisis and I know that spending cuts often hurt, but going on strike every time that happens only makes things worse and after years in this crisis the worker unions still don't seem to understand that.
Or maybe they do and just don't care, I really hope that the protests remain small though, ERT had about 2500 employees, which seems like quite a lot for such a small country and a station that isn't really seen or heard outside of it.