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posted by martyb on Monday July 06 2015, @08:57AM   Printer-friendly
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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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Monday July 06 2015, @11:42PM

    by frojack (1554) on Monday July 06 2015, @11:42PM (#205896) Journal

    I find it obscene that there's plenty of money to rescue bankers, but not a dime for Greek people.

    This.

    Many of these loans were debt traps, pure and simple, and when it became obvious that Greece could not pay, they looked for someone else to pay, because the banks were "too big to fail". (Hmmm, sounds familiar).

    If the EU is in fact a union, then the union has some obligation for the predatory behavior of the lenders. If its just a bunch of bullies on the play ground pushing around the kid in shabby trousers, then why call it a union. Because it sounds like a mob.

    Australia, Canada, the US, hell, even India have measures to take care of states/provinces that can not possibly pay their entire way.
    Some states get massive amounts of national funds, far in excess of their tax revenue. Other states pay in more taxes than they get back.

    The EU seems to be treating its member states like the old Soviet Union. Some states server only as buffer states to protect the homeland.
    Its looking more and more like Greece was just a wrapper around the Bosnia/Serbia/Albania problem.

    Its all good to talk of contracts and bailouts, and technical details of the mountains of paper constructing the EU. But at the end of the day, Greece has a balance of payments problem, and NOTHING other than selling off antiquities gets past that. Is that what the EU really wants?

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday July 07 2015, @02:10AM

    by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Tuesday July 07 2015, @02:10AM (#205959)

    Its all good to talk of contracts and bailouts, and technical details of the mountains of paper constructing the EU. But at the end of the day, Greece has a balance of payments problem, and NOTHING other than selling off antiquities gets past that. Is that what the EU really wants?

    It is not what the EU wants, it is what the banks and other moneyed interests want. Whenever you hear the term "austerity" in regards to government, behind it is an attempt to transfer public assets into private hands.

  • (Score: 2) by cafebabe on Saturday July 18 2015, @09:15AM

    by cafebabe (894) on Saturday July 18 2015, @09:15AM (#210729) Journal

    Some states server only as buffer states to protect the homeland.

    This happens intentionally or not but it has been driver which makes peripheral countries favorable towards expansion because it makes another country into a buffer zone. Unfortunately for Spain, Italy and Greece, the Mediterranean Sea forms a fairly definitive buffer between Europe and Africa. Furthermore, as an island nation, Greece has many routes to smuggle people. The more able people diffuse further into Europe. However, one of the relatively overlooked problems in Greece is the disproportionate accumulation of undocumented, low-skill immigrants who don't integrate into the local culture.

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