The main reason the Greek nation is up to its eyeballs in debt is the fact it has been run by successive incompetent governments and the populace are living in cloud-cuckoo land. The population have been allowed to retire 15 years or more earlier than most of the rest of Europe and live in a relative (unearned) pension-driven luxury. Meanwhile, successive governments have failed to tackle the lack of money going into the coffers to fund this and have turned a blind eye. Over a period of time this inevitably creates laziness, complacency and an ‘ignore it, someone else will deal with it years from now’ attitude in both Government and Populace. And I will add that we should all be very thankful and very grateful we didn’t have Gordon Brown for another ten years or we would have been in the same boat.
It is one with for them to bankrupt themselves but wholly another to expect the rest of the EU (read Britain, France and Germany) to continue to bail out failing, incompetent members. The EU is a farce anyway – who the devil really believes any more in the 21st century that its 1950s ‘Christian Socialist agenda’ is workable, economically or, for that matter, socially? And who wants it…?!
The EU hasn’t had its accounts pass the audit and be signed off as yet, year after year, as the whole place is a fiddling gravy train. It is only marginally less opaque and corrupt than FIFA, and continues to suck huge sums of money out of the pockets of efficient countries and their hard-working tax payers and pours it by the expensive bottle load down the throats of unelected commissioners in Brussels and in to the pockets of corrupt and incompetent politicians.
Back here at home, I can say that I am hugely disappointed in Cameron. I thought that he, at least, would have had the sense not to blow £250 million of tax payers money on going to war in Libya, or in agreeing to bail out junk economies like those in Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain etc. The Irish milked the EU for years, and here we are; all picking up the bill. The Greeks are the same. It doesn’t stop here, either, as next we’ll have Iceland in the mix as well – that’s the very same Iceland that went bankrupt through offering savings plans it couldn’t afford, and whose president appears to be the only person with the concept of honour to repay those debts. That country has voted not once but twice not to agree repayment plans. Yet they all think that they are fit to join the EEC. Please forgive me if I call the EEC by what it was intended to be, i.e.- an economic community, not a gravy chain, a dole queue, and not a charity for the losers and lazy. Despite the country’s fundamentals and predicament, the Greeks are brazenly out in the streets rioting at the very thought of having to buckle up, and do a little more work for a little longer in life. The shame of it! Do they have no national or personal pride?
Back here at home again, the very same could be said of our very own public sector, who have also been living in cloud-cuckoo land for way too long. And now we are no longer in the over-hyped bull market and geared growth times the money is no longer there any longer to fund their current ‘perks’. Unfortunately for them, they can make do with 4-weeks holiday a year and maybe consider working a little harder, and, of course, a little longer. Their final salary pensions will have to be a thing of the past as there is no more money to fund them. They should get a pension based on what has been invested and what returns are due on that investment. Why shouldn’t they?! Do they expect those of us that do contribute to pensions that are funded by investment to subsidise their inflated pensions through extra taxes? The very taxes that contribute to their wages. They aren’t creating new money for the country, they are just cycling existing money. Unfortunately for the civil service, Gordon Brown spent the country’s savings and sold off our assets for a song. Don’t forget, he sold the country’s gold reserves at an average gold price of $325 oz, against the $1,550 an ounce today. Add in the blind eye turned on immigration, and the subsequent millions and millions spent housing them all with free council houses and the throwing them ‘benefit money’ despite never having contributed anything to society. Even the free tv licences for grannies and his own country (Scotland) free prescriptions are costing the rest of us.
So, the lesson is basically – learn from your mistakes and look at your country’s fundamentals – it is you that should be helping the nation get back on its feet. I just hope that we, here in Britain, will learn from our own recent history and previous government’s mistakes and, as a nation, bail ourselves out and be back above water soon. On a personal note, I’d like to see us out of the EU, but that isn’t going to happen any time soon. If we must stay in the EU, then let us pursue similar thoughts to the others – let us encourage others within the EU pull their weight and wake up and smell the coffee. This means you – the Greeks/Spanish/Portuguese/Irish and whoever else is taking it very easy at the minority’s cost.