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posted by
martyb
on Monday July 06 2015, @08:57AM
from the getting-what-you-asked-for-may-not-be-getting-what-you-want dept.
from the getting-what-you-asked-for-may-not-be-getting-what-you-want dept.
The Greeks voted no to the European Union's terms, despite warnings from the EU that rejecting new austerity terms would set their country on a path out of the Eurozone. 62% voted "No" while 38% voted "Yes".
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Can anyone remember when the times were not hard, and money not scarce?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday July 06 2015, @11:01AM
Bankers.
Whatever sympathy I might have had for the ECB vanished in a puff of smoke when they demanded austerity for the pensioners.
Leave the old people out of it.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by moondrake on Monday July 06 2015, @11:19AM
Is the view in the US that this is about bankers? Most of the money came from EU taxpayers. Most of these would probably like to stop dumping money into a black hole unless Greece cuts its spending or increases its income.
Pensions in Greece are actually higher than in several other EU economies [nytimes.com] (Bulgaria, Lithuania, etc). The thing is, Greece spending pattern is not in balance with its productivity. Requesting that they do something about this before getting further investments seems reasonable to me.
PS: personally, although being a well-paid academic, I will have little to no state pension as a result of moving between too many countries, all with different (and ridiculous) rules about such things that usually do not benefit temporary residents. Therefore, I am rather insensitive to "oh dear, lets think of the the poor pensioner" arguments. IMHO state-provided pensions are detrimental to many 1st World economies, and we would do better to get rid of them entirely.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 06 2015, @11:48AM
Bulgarian pensions are anything but reasonable. Retirees often have to cut spending from basic necessities like heating in winter for Christ's sake.
PS: personally, although being a well-paid academic, I will have little to no state pension as a result of moving between too many countries, all with different (and ridiculous) rules about such things that usually do not benefit temporary residents. Therefore, I am rather insensitive to "oh dear, lets think of the the poor pensioner" arguments.
Well, would look at the well-fed healthy intellectual telling people who have been seriously overworked on manual labor through their entire lives without getting anything close to adequate healthcare how they are being lazy.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by moondrake on Monday July 06 2015, @02:12PM
Point well taken. But perhaps not so well made:
I do not think I said pensions in Bulgaria are reasonable. They might be (as you say) unreasonable compared to what is needed. But they are more in line with the productivity and economy of the country. Greece simply has not enough production to pay for reasonable pensions. You need to get the money from somewhere.
As for your second and somewhat hyperbolic point, this was in reply to my personal opinion. Your answer makes little sense though. You imply overworking on manual labor is worse than stress from not manual working (both is bad). Good or bad healthcare has little to do with the topic at hand (and I have both been uninsured at times (not enough $$$), as had a vastly overpriced health insurance because of working in 3rd world countries. Nevertheless, I still would have been fucked when something had happened in both cases).
I merely said I felt pensions in many EU countries are badly implemented, not that people who cannot take care of themselves should be left out to die. Pensions are being reduced in many countries because they are far to large a tax burden on the working (including "underfed and nonintellectual manual laborers") populations. Private retirement homes swallow much of that money happily in many places. This problem is actually worse in rich countries (like Germany and France where a too big share of the population is near retirement age).
The rules for being allowed a pension are even more silly. They sometimes do not even correlate with whether you actually worked or not. Most countries I have worked in require you lived in the country for a xx number of years before you can get a pension. Several demand I should live in the country in order to receive the pension. Getting back or transferring the tax I paid is difficult if not impossible, and even if you do, it does not stand in relation to the amount you would get when you actually get the pension. I would have rather not paid the tax, but that, obviously is not possible.
In the past, people would save money, and children, gasp, would take care of their parents. A system that stimulates such things (tax and hassle free saving for your own pension, tax deduction or compensation for children taking care of parents) gets my vote. Pensions are holy in the eyes of many people (turmoil ensues every time the topic comes up in politics). Having none and being OK with that, I find it refreshing to be able to honestly claim we should just get rid of it. However, do not insult me by assuming I would not want to care for people who need support.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2015, @12:20AM
As incomes fall while productivity soars, people are finding it harder and harder to save money.
Right now, I work in TV, I'm one of their most experienced and highly skilled staff members, and my employer refuses to pay me more than unemployment (I earn less than $US120/week while unemployment is $US130/week). There are very few jobs in this place, so they just threaten to fire you and suck up the fine they'll have to pay if you threaten to kick up a stink. Multimillionaires can do that, and you have no choice because they've absolutely fucked the local economy.
As far as my retirement goes, I'm saving $US7.59/week toward that end, but I only work 49 weeks of the year, so I'm really saving just $371.91 a year toward my retirement. That means, for every year I work now, I'm saving just one week of retirement. Right now, I've got 6 months at most saved up, and I have only 27 more years to save further.
By the time I retire, I will be about 2 years away from dying.
So, before you start bitching about people not living within their means, just remember that the wealthy fuck us at the drive through.
I say, typing this on an 8 year old laptop I was given, on a borrowed internet connection, while I search for another job. I've only been looking for 5 years, after my employer robbed me of $64,000.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday July 07 2015, @01:11AM
It's not like I am unwilling to work, I have my own projects. I apply every single day both for contracts and for perm jobs.
I am not alone in this, it is very common these days that those who are young enough to work either cannot get jobs, or are not paid enough to live independently. But in the US at least, those whose pensions were sensibly planned have enough money.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Tuesday July 07 2015, @07:50AM
Right. But, if we are discussing how things *should* be, is it not better than to fix the real problems?
If anything, you actually made my point stronger. The powers that be put you in a situation where you cannot take care for yourself. This means you become very dependent on them. In such a world, a good pension becomes highly valued. Then it will be cut...
The real problem is not the pension though, it is companies not valuing their employees.
I do not have much advice for you. When I felt there was no future in my field in my country, I simply left. It was not perfect (I lost my pension), but I still think it was the best decision. It may not work for everybody though.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday July 06 2015, @08:24PM
with the aid of wrigleys spearmint chewing gum.
There is no question that I am profoundly mentally ill. That and the fact that I am so outspoken leads to me being unemployable, so many well meaning but misinformed people have been after me to get on the government dole for years.
This lead to me calling 9-1-1 to request a no contact order against a case manager who refused to let me sleep. I work at night, see.
Real mental health professionals are not like that: I said to my psychiatrist "i dont need her to hand deliver my medicine. I want a written prescription I can pay for with my own money at a pharmacy of my own choice."
"Sounds like a plan," as he wrote my prescription.
I call it "The Culture of Dependency". It's not just the poor; consider defense contractor and politicians. I am strongly opposed to Ron Paul however I regard him highly in that he is happy to accept campaign donations without changing his positions in any way.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Monday July 06 2015, @08:58PM
Originally it was the bankers. It's now the tax payers because they loaned Greece the money needed to pay back the banker's loans. Because, you know, it is not acceptable if bankers lose their money, even if they knew that they were making a risky investment (and demanded high interest rates exactly for that reason).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Tuesday July 07 2015, @07:54AM
good point. Though I do not think the EU gave the money to safe the banks, they provided the money to prevent Greece from defaulting and going bankrupt. Obviously that did not help much though...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 06 2015, @02:01PM
Whatever sympathy I might have had for the ECB vanished in a puff of smoke when they demanded austerity for the pensioners.
Leave the old people out of it.
Those old people are a large part of the problem. After all, who is paying for the pensions they generously voted for themselves?
(Score: 1) by purple_cobra on Monday July 06 2015, @07:54PM
Similar situation to the UK. A lot of the people who troubled themselves to vote were those who are at or are nearing pensionable age, hence voted for the Tories as they promised a "triple lock" (feel free to look this up; I can't bring myself to read it again) on pensions. That the ones most affected by the "austerity" (read "flagellation to beat the money out of you") _didn't_ trouble themselves to vote is, admittedly, their fault, but it's still the likes of me who get to work until I'm 70 to ensure all these old buggers get their triple-locked pension. I think the plan is to now keep working us until we're about to drop dead and then boot us onto the dole, a safety net which is having the holes gradually enlarged year-on-year, allowing more people to slip through. And all the while, the wages reduce while the cost of everything goes up.
Unfortunately medical science is now able to keep more of these self-serving old bastards alive for longer, hence we'll be paying for them for longer.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 06 2015, @04:01PM
The pensioners were always in danger: much of the bond issue that was threatened back around the first bailout was held by pensions. But they weren't the ones about whom Greeks should be really upset.
The real problem in Greece is the fifty percent youth unemployment. That's a whole generation missing out on job experience, pay, pay increases, the means to start a family… it's a lost generation that's going to impact Greece for many years to come. That's the kind of damage that's not reversible with a debt write-off. The demographics are already suffering: Greek fertility rates have been on the decline since 2009, which means less growth in generations to come (and probably more migration bringing yet more poverty from abroad). Liquidity is a short term problem, and debt a longer term problem that can be refinanced and deferred, but youth unemployment is a quiet, festering problem with little short-term attention and tremendous implications for the future.