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Workers in the UK have suffered the biggest fall in wages among the world's richest countries since the financial crisis, research has suggested.
Between 2007 and 2015 wages in the UK fell by 10.4%, a drop equalled only by Greece, the analysis by the TUC [Trades Union Congress] found.
Women's pay in particular needs to be boosted, the union body said. Women earn on average 19.2% less than men, according to the latest official data.
The Treasury said the TUC's analysis did not fully reflect living standards.
The UK is the joint biggest faller on pay in 29 countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) - a forum for wealthy countries who work together to promote financial growth and social wellbeing.
The UK, Greece and Portugal were the only three OECD countries that saw real wages fall, according to the research complied by the TUC.
Source: BBC News
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 28 2016, @02:44PM
Greece was a good example of not leaving. Look to who was calling the shots. Those are the ones who are benefiting the most from the EU and have the most to lose if countries leave. The exact details are buried for a reason. They play up the 'good' things and downplay the costs.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Thursday July 28 2016, @03:10PM
Greece got themselves into the mess in the first place. They were less than honest about their finances when joining the Euro which caused all sorts of problems then they got a big loan from the IMF etc. It's a can of worms.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday July 28 2016, @08:00PM
The way I heard it was that German Banks lent Greece money to buy (German) arms to defend themselves against Turkey.
Now this wasn't exactly a wise move, but it also wasn't necessarily unreasonable. Was loaning them the money unreasonable? Perhaps. Was the austerity program demanded to pay back the loans unreasonable? Perhaps. Was the reaction to the austerity program predictable? Yes. But perhaps the strength of the reaction wasn't predictable.
It *is* true that Greece didn't have a strong economy even to start with.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday July 28 2016, @11:13PM
That wasn't exactly the story, since it suggests that the banks gave a damn what the borrowed money was going to be used for, when it probably wasn't even remotely that calculated.
The real reason the money poured into Greece (and Ireland, Portugal, and Spain) was that the yield on the bonds they were issuing was higher than the yields on the sovereign debt bonds from Germany and the UK, and with those debtor countries now part of the EU there was no longer any concerns about tax penalties that would make the difference in bond yields not worth it. Nobody was sitting there in a bank thinking out the purpose this borrowed money would go to, just about the higher return on investment they could make.
The thing is, the higher bond yields also mean higher risks, and those investment bankers were looking at the upsides but not the downsides. After all, sovereign debt is still relatively safe, so why not get Greece's 5% or 7% rather than Germany's 3.5%? But once the financial crisis hit, we got shown the reason why the interest rate was higher, the debt went bad, but the German banks were powerful enough to convince the German government to bully Greece into paying back the loan no matter what it took. And the "no matter what" took on the form of austerity and massive unemployment. Which was not negotiable, unseating at least 2 prime ministers.
In other words, yet another incarnation of the "heads we win, tails you lose" method of investment banking.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday July 28 2016, @10:21PM
Yeah, and Goldman Sachs had absolutely nothing to do with it [businessinsider.com]. At all [globalresearch.ca].
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.