To add to the other Greece Breaking News story (Greece Defaults, Still Wants Bailout)....
The Ars Writes:
Thom Feeney, a London shoe shop worker who started a campaign to raise €1.6 billion (that's US $1.78 billion). Feeney's IndieGoGo campaign, started just two days ago, has already raised an astonishing €478,575 (or $533,010) from more than 30,000 people.
"All this dithering over Greece is getting boring," Feeney wrote on his IndieGoGo page. "Why don't we the people just sort it instead?" He added that to come up with the €1.6 billion, every member of Europe would only have to give €3 each (well, technically you'd only need to collect from members of the European Union; that's not even counting any potentially generous Swiss or Norwegian people.)
The campaign has six days left to raise money. If €1.6 billion isn't raised, all the donors will get back their money.
This afternoon, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) declared that Greece was officially in arrears, but it has not yet declared that Greece is in default. Technically, the IMF could offer Greece an extension of its debt repayment obligation. On July 5, the country will hold a national referendum on whether to sign a deal demanding even stricter austerity from the nation.
But, if Europeans all chip in, maybe we can just put this silly bailout business behind us.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by srobert on Thursday July 02 2015, @02:30PM
The Greek nation is like a guy who "borrowed" money to buy medicine for a sick kid. He would promise anything at the time to get the money to save the kid's life. So, he promised to kill one of his other kids, as a condition of the loan. The sick kid got his medicine. Now it's time to pay up. What do you think he's going to do?
What I think is needed are more liberal alternatives to organizations like the IMF, that are demanding privatization, austerity, tax cuts for billionaires, and other economically disastrous policies, as conditions for lending money to nations in crisis situations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2015, @03:14PM
Greece is like a guy who borrowed money to buy an xbox off Craigslist.