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Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Wednesday, October 26th, 2011 10:35am PDT - promote requested by ctrlaltbleach.

She's fed up and she's not going to take it any more!

>> ^Sagemind:

She's fed up and she's not going to take it any more!


LOl you beat me to it!

She's clearly a left wing hippy

Can someone explain the Greek riots to me? I've only followed far enough to have picked up that they are in opposition to the austerity measures being enacted by government? What I've heard sounds like the government spent so much on social services that it went bankrupt, and the protesters are angry that the government is now attempting to cut back it's social services.

I'm not of strong opinion on this like I am in many other situations, but the balance of what I've heard sounds like the anti-austerity protests are so much whining that everyone wants their free money and maybe if we shoot the messenger the economy will recover.

>> ^bcglorf:

Can someone explain the Greek riots to me? I've only followed far enough to have picked up that they are in opposition to the austerity measures being enacted by government? What I've heard sounds like the government spent so much on social services that it went bankrupt, and the protesters are angry that the government is now attempting to cut back it's social services.
I'm not of strong opinion on this like I am in many other situations, but the balance of what I've heard sounds like the anti-austerity protests are so much whining that everyone wants their free money and maybe if we shoot the messenger the economy will recover.


The brunt of it is that Greece is in trouble, and the majority of people who will have to pay for it, or endure "austerity" as the fatcats like to say, had nothing, zero, to do with the trouble.

I've been trying to find out what went wrong there, but I see a lot of smoke and few specifics.

Naturally, any time the blame can be laid on social programs, then that narrative will be most promoted among America's mainstream media.

Frankly I think it was a combination of things, and some of it may have been related to the same CDO swindle that bankrupted Iceland.

But I'm sure you'll agree that if Greece went nuclear, all of their problems would be solved...just like Japan's....



EDIT:

Two words: Goldman Sachs.

Goldman was criticized for its involvement in the 2010 European sovereign debt crisis. Goldman Sachs is reported to have systematically helped the Greek government mask the true facts concerning its national debt between the years 1998 and 2009.[76] In September 2009, Goldman Sachs, among others, created a special credit default swap (CDS) index to cover of high risk of Greece's national debt.[77] The interest-rates of Greek national bonds have soared to a very high level, leading the Greek economy very close to bankruptcy in March and May 2010 and again in June 2011.

(Wikipedia)

Know what occupy wall street is about?



ok. About the same thing. Loss of true democracy, giving the rich a free ride on the taxpayers back, blah blah blah. But you knew that. Not really that hard to figure out dude. google.com. Try it. It works. None of it is really that hard to figure out either....unless you have an agenda.

"no strong opinion", but they are "whiners". Ok dude. fuck off.
>> ^bcglorf:

Can someone explain the Greek riots to me? I've only followed far enough to have picked up that they are in opposition to the austerity measures being enacted by government? What I've heard sounds like the government spent so much on social services that it went bankrupt, and the protesters are angry that the government is now attempting to cut back it's social services.
I'm not of strong opinion on this like I am in many other situations, but the balance of what I've heard sounds like the anti-austerity protests are so much whining that everyone wants their free money and maybe if we shoot the messenger the economy will recover.

If old ladies are physically throwing shit at police, you might want to pay some fucking attention.

>> ^bcglorf:

Can someone explain the Greek riots to me? I've only followed far enough to have picked up that they are in opposition to the austerity measures being enacted by government? What I've heard sounds like the government spent so much on social services that it went bankrupt, and the protesters are angry that the government is now attempting to cut back it's social services.
I'm not of strong opinion on this like I am in many other situations, but the balance of what I've heard sounds like the anti-austerity protests are so much whining that everyone wants their free money and maybe if we shoot the messenger the economy will recover.


There's no such thing as spending too much money on social services. It's a myth. That's what a society is, it's a system of social service.

Isn't it?

>> ^Ryjkyj:

>> ^bcglorf:
Can someone explain the Greek riots to me? I've only followed far enough to have picked up that they are in opposition to the austerity measures being enacted by government? What I've heard sounds like the government spent so much on social services that it went bankrupt, and the protesters are angry that the government is now attempting to cut back it's social services.
I'm not of strong opinion on this like I am in many other situations, but the balance of what I've heard sounds like the anti-austerity protests are so much whining that everyone wants their free money and maybe if we shoot the messenger the economy will recover.

There's no such thing as spending too much money on social services. It's a myth. That's what a society is, it's a system of social service.
Isn't it?


Basic economics still applies. As an individual, I can't spend more on myself than I can earn without the debt catching up on me. The same applies to society, if you are collectively spending more than you are collectively making, that is spending too much. Free health care, government funded post secondary education, full pensions starting at 45, and unemployment assistance of $50k annually for anyone that can't find a job they like is more than any country in the world today can really afford(save maybe a few exceptions of middle eastern nations with massive oil reserves and minimal populations).
Were did Greece's spending fall?

>> ^rougy:

>> ^bcglorf:
Can someone explain the Greek riots to me? I've only followed far enough to have picked up that they are in opposition to the austerity measures being enacted by government? What I've heard sounds like the government spent so much on social services that it went bankrupt, and the protesters are angry that the government is now attempting to cut back it's social services.
I'm not of strong opinion on this like I am in many other situations, but the balance of what I've heard sounds like the anti-austerity protests are so much whining that everyone wants their free money and maybe if we shoot the messenger the economy will recover.

The brunt of it is that Greece is in trouble, and the majority of people who will have to pay for it, or endure "austerity" as the fatcats like to say, had nothing, zero, to do with the trouble.
I've been trying to find out what went wrong there, but I see a lot of smoke and few specifics.
Naturally, any time the blame can be laid on social programs, then that narrative will be most promoted among America's mainstream media.
Frankly I think it was a combination of things, and some of it may have been related to the same CDO swindle that bankrupted Iceland.
But I'm sure you'll agree that if Greece went nuclear, all of their problems would be solved...just like Japan's....

EDIT:
Two words: Goldman Sachs.
Goldman was criticized for its involvement in the 2010 European sovereign debt crisis. Goldman Sachs is reported to have systematically helped the Greek government mask the true facts concerning its national debt between the years 1998 and 2009.[76] In September 2009, Goldman Sachs, among others, created a special credit default swap (CDS) index to cover of high risk of Greece's national debt.[77] The interest-rates of Greek national bonds have soared to a very high level, leading the Greek economy very close to bankruptcy in March and May 2010 and again in June 2011.
(Wikipedia)


Thanks Rougy, that's the kind of starting point I was looking for. I was hoping getting the opinions of few folks on here who'd already researched the matter was a faster place to start than wading through the sea of information out there blindly.

Still sounds as though Sachs role in this was to help the Greek government irresponsibly spend itself into oblivion. I'm still curious, and will have to dig, what that money was spent on. I know even in my country(Canada) our social services are scaled well back from Greece's, and ours are already at the breaking point of what our tax revenues can bear. Added into that is our taxes are generally higher than those in Greece and it seems that Sachs helped them postpone the inevitable, and made it worse. None the less, it also sounds like the population were the recipients or targets of the majority of the money and are now more angry at the slowing of the spending than at the debt load.

Again I'll have to look at it further. As one poster tried to call me out, I am not strongly convicted and convinced my opinion on this is correct or accurate, I have merely expressed without hedging or hiding what I hold to based on what I admit as my limited information and am asking to be proven wrong to speed my process of correcting my opinion should it be based on wrong assumptions. Rougy's pointed a big path I wasn't aware of. Anyone else have some more? Particularly around where Greece's government revenues come from and were they are spent? My perception that most of it is going right back to public services is pretty central to my opinion and I'd love to know if I'm wrong on it.

@bcglorf,

You're right that it has to be looked at more closely. If you find anything concrete, please feel free to share the link with me if you feel like it.

Regarding the "social spending" angle, I'm curious to know how much of that had to do with investing in some of the more trashy gizmos that Goldman et al had to offer.

We know that here in the states, a number of pension funds took a major hit when Wall Street tanked. They had invested heavily in the CDO scam (AAA rated). Wall Street was bailed out, they weren't.

I'm curious to know how much of Greece's damage was caused by similar investments.

I'm betting it was substantial.



P.S. - G.S. has been behind a lot of really dirty financial shit and they always seem to get away with it. A number of municipalities in the USA have suffered gravely thanks to G.S. They were basically looted. Matt Taibi wrote a great article about it in Rolling Stone, but I can't find the link just now. Worth a read if you feel like Googling for it.

This is worth a read, but I don't think it's the same article I was thinking of.

>> ^rougy:

@bcglorf,
You're right that it has to be looked at more closely. If you find anything concrete, please feel free to share the link with me if you feel like it.
Regarding the "social spending" angle, I'm curious to know how much of that had to do with investing in some of the more trashy gizmos that Goldman et al had to offer.
We know that here in the states, a number of pension funds took a major hit when Wall Street tanked. They had invested heavily in the CDO scam (AAA rated). Wall Street was bailed out, they weren't.
I'm curious to know how much of Greece's damage was caused by similar investments.
I'm betting it was substantial.

P.S. - G.S. has been behind a lot of really dirty financial shit and they always seem to get away with it. A number of municipalities in the USA have suffered gravely thanks to G.S. They were basically looted. Matt Taibi wrote a great article about it in Rolling Stone, but I can't find the link just now. Worth a read if you feel like Googling for it.
This is worth a read, but I don't think it's the same article I was thinking of.


No love of GS here .

I find the worst part of it though is the bailing out of massive corps like them, while their CEO's and top dogs pocket billions in profits while the companies were taking the massive risks that led to the companies collapse. In my opinion it's criminal to not demand that the ridiculous profits made taking the risks aren't the funds being used to payoff the debts from those very same risks turning out poorly later on.

For the record, in America a very big part of the wealth that was lost wasn't just pocketed by the ultra-wealthy. There were also all the middle class chaps refinancing homes they couldn't afford every two years and pocketing $30k-$60k a year for doing nothing but holding onto a home for two years. Some of those folks put that money away and came out fine. Most however bought RV's, electronics, multiple vehicles to fill their three car garages, and any other toys they wanted. After all, they were earning $30k a year for doing virtually nothing and had the money to burn. Of course after they had burnt that money, their backs were up against the wall when they bought that last fateful home before the market dropped out and found themselves with a $750k mortgage for home now worth $200k and payments they could only make in a world were they sold their home next year for $900k. Again, not everyone was doing this, but the numbers were very high. Over the 15 or so years this madness was going on, the guys really milking it had burnt through almost a half million dollars each buying stuff they really didn't need and with a method that had left them indebted for that same half mill with no way to pay it off. With 10s of thousands of people all having run after this, the value of the bad decisions of even the middle class was utterly massive. It wasn't only Goldman Sachs laughing all the way to the bank with free money, they were just doing it at a bigger scale, taking their 10% cut off the excess of thousands of similarly greedy middle class folk.

@bcglorf,

There were a lot of "house flippers" as I've heard them called, but I doubt it was a majority of the "bad loans" that Wall Street was packaging in their CDO's. I'm guessing 20% of those loans would be a high guess, most likely in the 10% range.

I'm convinced that the Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs) were a major culprit that caused a lot of people to lose their homes. Back around 2004, there was a big advertising blitz here in the states about how people could refinance their homes using an ARM and make themselves some easy money.

What actually happened was that those loans were sold---which I don't think was always allowed---and the fine print said that each time the loan was sold, there was an adjustment to the mortgage.

My parents bought a little house for a rental. Their first month's mortgage payment was about $180. Not six months later, they were paying almost $500, and they couldn't get out of it. They were lucky. It wasn't their primary residence and they were able to sell the place suffering a relatively minor loss.

Anyway...I still haven't found anything new about Greece's problems, but as of today it still seems to be a powder keg situation.

Cheers.

EDIT:

Look at this graph from Wikipedia.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Sovereign_credit_default_swaps.png

One look at that tells me that Greece's problem probably doesn't have much to do with its social spending.

>> ^rougy:

@bcglorf,
There were a lot of "house flippers" as I've heard them called, but I doubt it was a majority of the "bad loans" that Wall Street was packaging in their CDO's. I'm guessing 20% of those loans would be a high guess, most likely in the 10% range.
I'm convinced that the Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs) were a major culprit that caused a lot of people to lose their homes. Back around 2004, there was a big advertising blitz here in the states about how people could refinance their homes using an ARM and make themselves some easy money.
What actually happened was that those loans were sold---which I don't think was always allowed---and the fine print said that each time the loan was sold, there was an adjustment to the mortgage.
My parents bought a little house for a rental. Their first month's mortgage payment was about $180. Not six months later, they were paying almost $500, and they couldn't get out of it. They were lucky. It wasn't their primary residence and they were able to sell the place suffering a relatively minor loss.
Anyway...I still haven't found anything new about Greece's problems, but as of today it still seems to be a powder keg situation.
Cheers.
EDIT:
Look at this graph from Wikipedia.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Sovere
ign_credit_default_swaps.png
One look at that tells me that Greece's problem probably doesn't have much to do with its social spending.


The 'making easy money' off of ARM's is a big part of what I was talking about. Regular people were encouraged to make 'easy money' upgrading their primary residence. There's of course big fault on the banks for encouraging and profiting off that, but there's also fault on the regular folks making the easy money too.

I didn't just mean professional house flippers, even a regular Joe that noticed his house had gone up by $40k since buying it a year ago deciding he'd sell, use $20k of the profits as down payment on a bigger home, and the other $20k to furnish the new home with nice toys. More than just a few of those guys did it a second or third time too, an why not? The problem ones were the ones that extended themselves to the max where they couldn't make their mortgage payments unless their planned sale at a profit panned out. The banks were stupid to lend to those kind of people, and that's been well established. It's been less popular though to point out that the borrowers were stupid to take the deal too. It's been even less popular to point out that the borrowers often made a lot of money along the way too. My beef is that the banks stupidity got cushioned by tax payers. The right approach was taken by letting the borrowers live with their decision, the banks should've been treated the same.

@bcglorf,

The problem I have with your point of view mainly rests on the presumption that the people who were defrauded "got what they deserved." I just don't see it that way. It's sort of justifying the bankers actions.

When somebody who is in a position of power and respect, as are most bankers and investors I would say, you can't blame John & Jane Doe for trusting in their advice.

The bankers and investors should have known better, and the vast majority of them did, but that didn't stop them from spreading the lies and conning people into signing their lives away.

P.S. - I hope Greece defaults. Something is rotten in Denmark when entire countries must go bust in order to satisfy Wall Street.

>> ^rougy:

@bcglorf,
The problem I have with your point of view mainly rests on the presumption that the people who were defrauded "got what they deserved." I just don't see it that way. It's sort of justifying the bankers actions.
When somebody who is in a position of power and respect, as are most bankers and investors I would say, you can't blame John & Jane Doe for trusting in their advice.
The bankers and investors should have known better, and the vast majority of them did, but that didn't stop them from spreading the lies and conning people into signing their lives away.
P.S. - I hope Greece defaults. Something is rotten in Denmark when entire countries must go bust in order to satisfy Wall Street.


The people I figure were defrauded were the ones investing in the companies that were carrying terrible bad mortgages but calling themselves grade A safe investments. Those investors were defrauded and have very serious cause for concern as they were outright lied to by people wanting to profit off them.

As for the people buying homes at inflated prices, I would say they hold some blame and some plain old bad luck. The ones that took on mortgages they could only afford if the home increased in price I do blame pretty readily. They took a big risk, and risk were they were informed. They knew that they were betting on housing prices increasing. They knew the terms they were betting under and what it would mean if they won or lost the bet. They lost and should take the loss. The banks encouraging and focusing on those bets lost as many times over as they had customers lured in. The difference is the banks were pocketing more profit and got tax payer assistance to cushion their loss while the customers were left to deal on their own. I'd prefer both were left to deal with the consequences.

As for Greece, I've only scratched beneath the surface still, but it is looking like their debt problems run much deeper than just social services spending. I'm very curious were the real turning/tipping point in this was. If anyone has any good advice aside from the lead Rougy already threw out that'd be great. My current trail is the 40% of the Greek economy that was purely public sector jobs. That makes for a house of cards that's very vulnerable to government cut backs. My province(Manitoba) is in that very same boat and it is federal transfer funds from the federal government alone that is keeping us afloat.