Is the Greek debt crisis their own fault? Some blame Socialism. Some blame the 2008 Great Recession. Some blame the evil banks and their austerity requirements. Some blame Greece's extreme social benefits and excesive tax fraud. what's to blame?
Sad to say, but what Greece is living now is a direct consequence of what Greek establishment and politicians did ... what else? If they said the truth Greece would have been out of EURO now.
The Greek government yes, but the average citizen no. They have tried voting in different political groups and people and each has failed them.
That's the nature of a democracy. You're responsible for what your representatives do whether you voted for them, failed to vote, or failed to convince your partners there was a better representative.
did the average citizen DEMAND that the Greek govt. cut wasteful spending and crack down on tax fraud? i seriously doubt it. Perhaps folks are right, maybe Greece IS a victim of extreme Socialist entitlement.
Eh, I make the parallel with Italy: during the "pentapartito" governments [governments made by 5 parties], in the age of "party-cracy", the end of the First Republic [80's, early 90's], all Italians knew about bribery, tricks in public works, politicians who got money from this and that ... but the parties at the government kept on collecting voting ... It was the Justice System to break the toy, not the electors ... I'm afraid in Greece has happened something similar.
If have a mixed model was the fault, every Nordic nation that uses such a model would be where Greece is. But that is not the case. One might also consider this...
It's simply a case of ignorant voters who believed what their socialist politicians told them, and now must face the consequences for the stupidity of both! And we're just as dumb here for believing the lies of a socialist charlatan like Obama! Our day of reckoning is inevitable if we refuse to learn from the lessons of Greece!
When you cannot tell the difference between a socialist and a neoliberal oligarchist.....that must mean you are of the right wing camp. Obama is like every president since Reagan. Owned by banksters, corporations, and elites who are not socialists, but predatory capitalists. That working people, white americans who work for a living, cannot discern the difference is the problem. So they vote the men of the oligarchy back in while not being able to figure out why they are not being represented. lol.
My experience has been that catastrophes are usually caused by a perfect storm of events and not just one thing.
And if YOU can't tell the difference between the horrible conditions under Obama and the great prosperity the nation embraced under Reagan, you're destined to continue putting incompetent socialist morons like Hillary in the White House, and condemning this nation to the same fate as Greece!
A while back, I read a couple of things about Greece. One was that Greece has a tax on in-ground swimming pools. A total of 300 people paid this tax the last year there were data for, but aerial and satellite photos showed over 21,000 swimming pools in Athens alone. The news story was about how everyone was covering up their pools with tarps so the eyes in the sky couldn't notice them and the taxman wouldn't come by. Another story concerned the sad fate of a conscientious, dedicated tax collector. He was ignored. When he persisted, he was beaten. Those beating him were government employees. The lesson was not lost on other tax collectors. Another story concerned the state-run railroad. Seems the total paid out in salaries to the railroad employees was 7 TIMES the gross revenues of the railroad. All government employees, of course. Greece had some impressive percent of the population working for the government, approaching 50%. Another story concerned the disposition of the first rounds of loans to the Greek government. It was used to pay all these government employees, few of whom actually did anything, because the government had run out of money to pay them. A situation as implied by these stories isn't something that can be corrected overnight. Austerity meant tougher tax collection and shedding large numbers of government workers, but those workers were dumped into a dysfunctional economy that could not possibly absorb them, leading to astronomical unemployment rates, people who could not pay the taxes because they had no income. The wealthy and productive Greeks have foreign addresses.
I agree that their government is a myriad of systemic problems, however there are solutions that can have almost immediate effects, while bringing capital BACK into the country. Lowering their taxes and selling off the non-profitable government utilities to private businesses would reverse their downward spiral and actually create real jobs rather than the pretend work that now exists. Their work ethic needs to change, and that must be forced on them by cutting back the entitlements which they cannot continue to support. But when a nation's people are so deeply entrenched in the concept that government owes them a living, that is extremely difficult to accomplish without massive riots. I see that outcome as inevitable, and with the newest bailout, the rest of Europe is throwing good money after bad and just kicking the can down the road. Just as we do here in the US.
