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Greece Is Running Out of Money, Cannot Make June IMF Repayment
jones_supa writes: Greece, the country which has been in extreme financial trouble and high debt for years, cannot make debt repayments to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) next month, unless it achieves a deal with creditors. 'The four installments for the IMF in June are €1.6 billion ($1.8 billion). This money will not be given and is not there to be given,' Interior Minister Nikos Voutsis told Greek Mega TV's weekend show. Shut out of bond markets and with bailout aid locked, cash-strapped Athens has been scraping state coffers to meet debt obligations and to pay wages and pensions. With its future as a member of the 19-nation eurozone potentially at stake, a second government minister accused its international lenders of subjecting it to slow and calculated torture.
Here's the link to the "Cabal" story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05...
Remember, it's the shareholders that pay these fines. And no one in the bank corporation is held accountable.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You seem to know a lot about Greece. Have you been there or is it all just internet lore?
I have to live there and I can tell you we are neither lazy nor entitled. Those of us that can actually find a job end up working for scraps. Wages for people with degrees and postgrad studies are often less than what you find for unskilled labour in other "developed" parts of Europe.
Employment is always precarious so people do not dare even claim overtime hours often in fear of losing their jobs.
Even the public sector, which has always been considered the domain of the "privileged" among greek salaried employees has for years been shrunk to sensible size.
And retirement? I don't expect to be able to retire before 70 the way things are going, and even then, it will be for pocket money, a fraction of what I will have paid in welfare taxes. Not to mention taxes for (a practically inexistent by now) health service.
Yes, for years things have been different. That was in the 80's and 90's mostly. You could say we "deserve" our fate but you wouldn't be so quick to say it if it were you picking up the bill for stuff that was certainly not your fault.
Personally I wish they would let us out of the euro. I have no illusions and understand it will be a long and hard period (perhaps even 10 years) of adaptation, during which living standards will drop even further, but what is going on right now is just pointless. In the long run, we just cannot go on like this