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Greek Workers Terrified They May Have To Work Longer
Informative report from Bloomberg which highlights that if you are a baker, waiter, hairdresser, or radio presenter in Greece you qualify for early retirement. Taxes optional along the way. Oh, and throw in the most generous pension system in Europe: 11.6% of GDP goes to pension coverage (24% in 2050), and one can see why every IMF involvement will bring the country closer to civil way. Why are Greece bonds not yielding 300% again? Oh yeah, cause between pensions and interest, you should see about 100 times GDP paid out to fund interest expense and retirement each year.
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Christ, why am I working in this country??? lol
You call what you do work? What do you produce?
Let me guess. Excel Spreadsheets ;p
Get with the program.
The US/Goldman Sachs (one in the same) produces very important widgets called INNOVATIVE FINANCIAL PRODUCTS.
Christ, why am I working in this country??? lol
Buy gold and silver fast before the country goes back to the Drachma! 15 years!!??!?!? Try 15 minutes!!!! Save your bread and your ass Andreas Siemous!!!
I wonder if having sovereign default ever 10-15 years is a better way to life than working 9-5 for somebody else and then give 50% of it away and do that everyday for 65 years? And if you're lucky at teh end of it all you might own your house, which you can't even give to your children without the gov't taking its share in death.
Perfectly stated Ragnarok. Our government has become a huge burden on our shoulders.
We are being raped to pay the salaries of idiots that don't even bother showing up for work: Here is Coburn's report on AWOL federal workers. This is one place our hard earned income is being squandered
http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=LatestNews.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=e6e7a865-802a-23ad-4e5f-3dd73af8c6c2
Tip of the iceberg.
Those are only the ones reported as AWOL. What about all the ones that do show up, but don't do anything? Or the ones like this clown, who gets paid NOT go come to work:
http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=918324
Then add on the fact that these AWOL'ers are likely people that are already only expected to work 9-5, with every possible holiday being an actual holiday.
Despite all this, the AWOL'ers, the ones paid to stay at home, the ones that don't do shit... They'll all get kickass pensions come retirement time. Hooray!
Out here in NYC, there has been a long tradition of a fraternal organization providing no show union jobs for associates. Fedgov is no different.
Absolutely correct nedwardkelly.
And as a federal whistleblower, I am currently fighting this in the court system, trying to find someone, ANYONE, who gives a shit about this problem....
Panama has a low flat tax and only taxes on income sourced inside of Panama. They also don't tax on any interest made in savings/CDs accounts at local banks. I just need to make enough passive income to quit my job and I am fucking gone.
I have a friend who was stationed in Panama in the Air Force during peace time and he swears by the place! He has his second Panamanian wife now. The goofy guy doesn't even speak Spanish. Says you don't have to living there. They mostly know English as well.
Good grief... b/t this and the ZH article on strategic default... it's becoming more and more clear how much of a sucker I am dutifully going to work each day, paying my mortgage, etc. What a joke. Where the hell does all this lead?
" I am become Death, the destroyer of Worlds"
Make sure to whole of the video. It is beautiful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF7EhwcwEj8&feature=PlayList&p=7FE92832FB68C72E&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=25
The pensioners will get their way because they are unafraid to protest. The IMF will bail them and we, the US taxpayers, will work longer to pay for it. I'm looking forward to doing all I can to help assuage their plight. No retirement for me, thanks to the miracle of fiat currency fractional reserve banking and our wonderful fascist oligarchy.
Yes, they will get their way.
They will be paid their pensions in Drachmas, in nominal terms.
I doubt they have a clue as to the actual solution to their problem. At least in this country we have a growing movement to audit the Fed (which will likely lead to it's dissolution).
And before you snap off a "No wayz, 'Merikun sheeplez will just knuckkl under liek alwayz!" realize that the worse things get, the more of them will WAKE THE F@$% UP!
And things are going to get considerably worse before they get better.
Americans will spend more hours at work, won't necessarily produce anything with those extra hours. Will end up poorer too.
Sigh!
every unfucked bulshitter got his opportunity to twist events and drop his venom. very cheap propaganda
Greece should change its national anthem. May I suggest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBShN8qT4lk
US markets will forget all about this by the close today. We have a whole day for all the talking heads to inform us all how none of this stuff in Greece is a worry for us. Dip buyers out in full force again.
Damn Wanking Wanger looks to be right again. A triple digit dow loss which sticks is like a black swan event nowadays.
Ha ha, it's funny, because it's true.
Looks like I was being pessimistic when I said we'd forget by the end of the day. Hell, looks forgotten by lunchtime.
i just arrived in this new normal.
are you interested in some investment management services?
Send them over here to the U.S.
The commercial RE market is booming....
Just like the man said yesterday: "Why should Germany's taxpayers work until 65 so Greek tax evaders can retire at 50?"
67 is correct.
65 is for women.
To my Greek fellow travelers on the road
to serfdom and the grand supercycle
collapse: forget your retirement, it was
always a lie. The socialists lied to you,
you knew it was too good to be true, you
still voted for them, now you see it, now
you don't. They took the money.
I'm sure the Obama version will work out better. C'mon everybody:
"YES WE CAN !!"
I haven't been to a Greek island for a long time, but when I was there, everyone seemed to be sitting around not doing much... and when I went to a bank to get some money... wow... I have never been so bored waiting... and I was the first in the queue being dealt with... talk about making a meal out of it...
With a cultural history of thousands of years, the Greeks look at us rushing around like chickens without our heads and laugh. We may have a thing or two to learn from the Greeks about patience and what's really important in life. Consider the remote possibility that we may not have all the answers.
Just sayin'
Exactly C D . Rushing arounding like chickens with our heads cut off, wishing our lives away.
We have a lot to learn from these cultures that actually enjoy life. There is a middle ground here....but how we live here in the states, doesn't even resemble life....at least in the big cities
Agreed.
If you let it happen, life will pass you by in the blink of an eye.
CD and Hulk, spot on. The US is a nest of narcissism and neuroticism. Just stroll down any Manhattan avenue and you'll see every dick and dick-ess glued to their Blackberry or I-phone, or I-pod, tap-tap-tapping away at the keys as if the world depends on the fuckin note they are writing, probably to their friend about meeting them at the bar or nail salon in 10mins:
"Sory, rng 10mins l8, b there sn"
Or listening to the latest garbage music so that they don't have to be "present" for even one single second. Everyone is in such a hurry to do nothing, to get nowhere, rushing through their life, caught in what is purely a deceptive reality crafted by their small mind and held on to as if life depended fully, by the ego.
The concrete jungle poisons your soul.
Oh my fucking God. This is fantastic stuff. The shalowness of your everyday, western, postmodern, identity devided men and women. Like cockroaches always scrambling for nothing, going nowhere, knowing nothing. I think this poem fits your comment perfectly.
Agree. But if you don't work and just want to enjoy the good life, don't expect the other half to pay for it.
Note that in my post I stated the need for a balance. Hard to achieve that balance though while being raped by an out of control government
11.6%?? What a bunch of tight-fisted pricks. If they were that mean here in LA, there'd be (more) riots:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Wednesday that they supported controversial plans to rein in the costs. The mayor and the governor, appearing at separate events, said the retirement packages — which allow some public employees to stop working at age 50 with a pension nearly equal to their entire salary — are more generous than taxpayers can afford. "The single biggest threat to our fiscal health and California's future is our public pension system," Schwarzenegger said at a Capitol news conference, declaring the growing costs a "crisis."
"Here in Sacramento, pension reform must be our No. 1 priority," he said. Earlier in the day, Villaraigosa declared in Los Angeles that the city's "pension system is no longer sustainable.'' Retirement benefit costs will consume 19% of the city's general fund budget in the coming fiscal year, he said.
19% -- yeah baby! Okay, it's the budget, not GDP, but by the time the time the asshats in in Sacto and City Hall are done, the budget and GDP will be 1:1.
Link for above quote:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-public-pensions-20100422,0,2262758...
Greek socialists want to create a new Soviet Republic in Greece. Too bad for proud Greeks. Socialist ate all the money creating their own cast of wealthy corrupt govt officials. Now they blame Greeks and say that greeks are the ones who are responsible for this chaos. Greek Socialist Govt had only one plan. To lead Greeks to poverty and mizery.
Weren't they elected? It was not a coup right?
Hitler was elected also with lies. He was a Socialist too.
Sounds familiar. Promise greatness (utopia), bankrupt the country.
Note the lessons learned, then set your sights on a bigger target.
Repeat until there are no targets large enough to resist your multinational union.
The lesson: All roads lead to Statism, democracy only works when you have an engaged electorate that has the abilit to think critically and willing to act to defend it.
Solution: Become autonomous.
This is the problem the West faces, we are all so smart that we only have service economies and no manufacturing. Trouble with service related work whether it is governement jobs, banking, insurance - they don't produce anything and are parasites to the remaining workers who actually build something. Once this service/manufacturing balance gets skewed to all service the country is F**ked.
Actually Germany has done a terrific job of maintaining its manufacturing sector despite being such a high-cost producer. Something about quality and innovation, I guess. Might be a model to look at.
The West ex-Germany, yes, we've pretty much screwed ourselves. The UK has to be the poster boy for destroying its manufacturing base, although the US doesn't have much to brag about either.
Do they even realize the situation they are in? The only country in Europe that can bail them out has citizens that despise them. Greece plummeting into the abyss will wake up everyone else. Follow Greece off the cliff or get your shit together.
Somewhere along the way many of this worlds people became fellow travelers. I include many in this great land of ours. Rising expectations on so many fronts are hard to dial back, trim, get real, you say it how you wish.
The govt does not produce hardly anything of value. Whether here or in Olive Oil land. Govt only redistributes whatever wealth there is. When are we- you- me going to get this simple fact. S. Jobs is a smart man. He has created a need where there is none. Somewhere along the way, we need to create a need for sanity otherwise, no amount of Jobs will matter. America may slide into its left coast and heave up a might cloud of ash.
Bakers are qualified for early retirement because the work is classified as dirty or dangerous.
Hello, is there anything odd about that?
Not to mention waiters and hairdressers!
And FURTHERMORE, there is no problem with public pension funding -- especially in California. How do I know? My union told me so! (If you have a really strong stomach, click on the link and read the entire disinformative screed -- this is what the unions are using to "educate" the rank and file here in CA):
Don't Believe the Hype: It's unfortunate that a report from the Pew Center on the States added to right-wing doomsaying about state retirement systems with its alarmist title, The Trillion Dollar Gap: Underfunded State Retirement Systems and the Road to Reform. In fact, the actual substance of the report paints a pretty positive story about fiscal responsibility by most states and highlights well-funded pensions with trillions of dollars in assets available to deliver benefits in coming decades.
As this Dispatch will emphasize, there is no crisis in most state retirement systems, even according to the numbers of the researchers demanding state leaders take unneeded action to cut the incomes of retirees. And despite the hype from a few carefully selected anecdotes of retirees gaming pension systems, the reality is that the overwhelming number of public employees receive pretty bare-bones benefits, in some cases not enough even to keep them out of poverty.
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/newman170410.html
I DEMAND FREE MONEY!!!
Oh yeah, that's true of lots of our old people as well.
And young people, too, now that Obama's in office. Also, free health care.
This is going to end one of two ways.
1. Massive depopulation, and a reset. (or extinction)
2. The realization that not everyone on the face of the earth can be a worker, there is not enough need/demand at full employment, and the workforce/society transitions into something along the lines of the volunteer military.
My vote is number one, as it has historical precedents. Welcome to the new dark age, same as the old dark age.
The US is the middle ground. Asia is the other extreme. Enjoy!
At least they have jobs.
Ever been to Africa, bitches?
I know people are suffering but somehow I don't feel sorry for these people at all. As a matter of fact, I kinda feel good about someone getting what they deserve. Am I a bad person?
Troubled maybe, but human.
I know what you mean Mojo. I feel the same way about the native Americans. They shouldn't have taken the blankets and whiskey, you know? I'm with 'ya brother. What idiots.
Very good! The folks handing out the whiskey and blankets were just primitive renditions of Wall Street bankers. Wonder what lies they told before they stole everything in sight?
"Work more years, less money"
Welcome to America, Greece!