November 15, 2010

Quelle surprise - the Greek economy

Somehow I am not surprised. Nobody wants to be the messenger and everybody wants their little slice of the pie. Their own personal entitlement -- after all, it isn't much; surely we can do this just for me. From the UK Guardian:
Greek deficit much bigger than estimate
Greece's goal of reducing its gargantuan debt received a fresh blow today when the EU statistics agency announced that the country's 2009 budget deficit was much worse than first thought.

Six months after Athens received €110bn (£93bn) in emergency loans from EU nations and the International Monetary Fund to prop up its near-bankrupt economy, Eurostat revealed that Greece's budget deficit reached 15.4% of GDP last year, substantially higher than its previous estimate of 13.6%.

In April, Eurostat had estimated the debt-to-GDP ratio would reach 115.1%. The revised data meant that Greece's debt ratio has eclipsed those of every other EU state, officials said. By the end of 2009, its debt is projected to account for 126.8% of GDP.

Greece's poor bookkeeping was blamed for the budget black holes.
Entitlement programs destroy the desire to work. They guarantee that the "beneficiary" will sit back, stay out of trouble and vote for the next clueless ninny who promises more government cheese. Sure, they complain about being kept down by "the man" but they are too dim to realize that the current administration is "the man" and that most of the rich people are the ones who are hiring. A friend of the bakery dishwasher it looking to pick up some shifts at the bakery. We are emailing back and forth and he is #1) - working for minimum wage and #2) - working just enough hours/week such that the business owner is not liable for unemployment insurance if the guy is laid off. The business owner is in his 60's and was very much the counter-culture radical back in the 1960's -- peace love and flower power and all that. Now, he is just as greedy as those people he excoriates. Posted by DaveH at November 15, 2010 7:01 PM
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