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Post by bunkie on Dec 29, 2012 12:35:36 GMT -5
Greece: The odysseywww.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2012/12/201212261023141617.htmlAt the end of another year of painful austerity and mouting debts, Greece's battered economy is seeing over 1,000 workers lose their jobs every day.
On the surface, many cities still looks prosperous, but the nation's deep crisis is clearly reflected in the windows of hundreds of empty shops.
More than one million Greeks are unemployed, which is one-quarter of the workforce, and the country is facing a youth unemployment rate of 58 percent.
But while many are struggling to survive in this harsh financial climate, others are returning to the land from the towns and cities that onced promised so much.
Up until a month ago, Kostas Bozas was a city banker. Now he is unemployed and has moved to his father's house in a village outside Thessaloniki, going back to his roots in search of a future.
"I come a from a steady job, and now at the age of 50 it's the right opportunity to become a farmer ... my father will teach me the things he knows from his father."
Thousands have taken the road back to farming in recent years - while the rest of the economy is in free fall, the farming sector is actually adding jobs.....
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Post by castanea on Dec 29, 2012 13:07:36 GMT -5
In the coming years, many other countries will be joining the Greeks.....
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Post by templeton on Dec 29, 2012 17:31:41 GMT -5
I must be feeling a bit rambunctious this morning. So an alternative take on this 'news'. On the surface an interesting trend, but I would be asking how much of the move to the land is driven by EU farmer subsidies? Note that Kostas isn't saying he's growing food for his family - and he's an (ex) banker - trust him if you like. I'm pleased for Kostas that he will be getting out into the fresh air - well it is Europe, so maybe not so fresh. And living a healthy lifestyle - oops, agriculture is the third highest occupational and health risk sector for workplace accidents...(check out the reports at Eurostat) Note that further on in the article "... Alexandra Tricha, a former scientist. When she left the city to start a company growing gourmet snails everybody thought she was crazy, but now business is booming." Who is eating the gourmet snails? Poor Greeks? As for the claim in the article by Kristos that "we are not people who don't pay our taxes..." it would seem to be in stark contrast with the facts. This from the New Yorker "Explanations of how Greece got in this mess typically focus on profligate public spending. But its fiscal woes are also due to a simple fact: tax evasion is the national pastime. According to a remarkable presentation that a member of Greece’s central bank gave last fall, the gap between what Greek taxpayers owed last year and what they paid was about a third of total tax revenue, roughly the size of the country’s budget deficit. The “shadow economy”—business that’s legal but off the books—is larger in Greece than in almost any other European country, accounting for an estimated 27.5 per cent of its G.D.P. (In the United States, by contrast, that number is closer to nine per cent.) Read more: www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2011/07/11/110711ta_talk_surowiecki#ixzz2GTwYYLUo" I'd like to see a bit more analysis by Al Jezeera before I start celebrating the resurgence of Greek agriculture. T
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Post by MikeH on Dec 30, 2012 7:47:04 GMT -5
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Post by templeton on Dec 31, 2012 3:59:37 GMT -5
Bunkie, Castanea, and Mike, I've just re-read my post, and rather than being cheeky, it reads cheaper and more cynical than I intended. Not the way to welcome the new year. My apologies. ( but I'm still suspicious of that banker... ) All the best for the new year from the (relatively relaxed) SH. cheers, T
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Post by bunkie on Dec 31, 2012 13:19:24 GMT -5
no apologies needed temple! and a happy new year to you and yours! i kinda got the thought that you didn't like Al Jazeera?! ) anyway, as far as the banker, i would doubt ANY banker these days!!! but the article quotes him as saying he's being taught by his father to be a farmer. yeah, been reading about the wood burning there causing pollution. maybe she's exporting them?! )
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Post by mountaindweller on Jan 2, 2013 3:04:54 GMT -5
Why should Greek people pay taxes? There is little reason. Public transport is a total chaos. They have to queue hours to get some paperwork done. Managing usual bureaucratic actions takes ages even paying a phone or water bill is horrible. Roads are bad, public parks are either non-exsistant or run down. Everything public is not in easy reach. No bulk billing at the doctor either. If you want to go in a public pool you must get two medical examns first. If a government demands taxes they must give something in return and in an accesible way, not after running around several days to get some paperwork done.
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Post by templeton on Jan 2, 2013 5:03:26 GMT -5
Why should Greek people pay taxes? So the Greek Government can pay back the people they owe money to? T
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Post by MikeH on Jan 2, 2013 7:22:03 GMT -5
Not paying taxes got the country in shit up to a certain level but not the tsunami level that the bank debacle did. Greeks had nothing to do with that although Greek bankers probably did (The easiest way to rob a bank is to own one). Yet Greeks are being asked to pay for the greed, theft, mismanagement, blind optimism, etc. of a few. If I was a Greek, I'd say fuck that.
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Post by bunkie on Jan 3, 2013 12:59:10 GMT -5
i find this fascinating at how the citizens are handling the situation... Euros discarded as impoverished Greeks resort to bartering Communities set up local currencies and exchange networks in attempt to beat the economic crisiswww.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/02/euro-greece-barter-poverty-crisisIt's been a busy day at the market in downtown Volos. Angeliki Ioanitou has sold a decent quantity of olive oil and soap, while her friend Maria has done good business with her fresh pies.
But not a single euro has changed hands – none of the customers on this drizzly Saturday morning has bothered carrying money at all. For many, browsing through the racks of second-hand clothes, electrical appliances and homemade jams, the need to survive means money has been usurped.
"It's all about exchange and solidarity, helping one another out in these very hard times," enthused Ioanitou, her hair tucked under a floppy felt cap. "You could say a lot of us have dreams of a utopia without the euro."...
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Post by steev on Jan 3, 2013 15:38:55 GMT -5
At least the Greeks are being asked to pay for the bankers' greed; I don't recall having been asked. I think Iceland had the right idea; they threw some of their banksters in prison.
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baby daddy
gardener
Laugh when you can, Apoligize when you should, Let go of the things you can't change.
Posts: 132
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Post by baby daddy on Jan 3, 2013 22:12:37 GMT -5
Save those silver coins guys and gals, gold is to rich for my blood. I wouldn't want to amass too much " Local Currency" with my luck it would be better suited for toilet paper..
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Post by steev on Jan 4, 2013 23:55:52 GMT -5
Lack of currency is a problem, but lack of toilet paper is a PITA.
If the SHTF, I hope I have have lots of seeds and a good stash of antibiotics; precious metals won't fill my belly or fix my owies.
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Post by MikeH on Jan 5, 2013 4:06:23 GMT -5
Toilet paper = The New Currency
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Post by steev on Jan 6, 2013 1:38:00 GMT -5
If that be so, then for a change, the more they print, the better off we'll be.
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