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The Euro Legacy: In Greece, Children Pick Through Trash Cans For Food
"We have reached a point where children are coming to school hungry," as with an estimated 10% of Greek elementary and middle school students suffering from 'food insecurity', the troubled nation has fallen to the level of some African countries. As the NY Times reports, unlike the US, Greek schools do not offer subsidized cafeteria lunches. Exacerbated by the austerity measures including cuts in subsidies for larger families, the cost has become insurmountable for many. With 26% of Greek households on an 'economically weak diet', children are starting to steal for food and picking through trash cans as they proclaim, "our dreams are crushed." What is frightening is the speed at which it is happening, "a year ago it wasn't like this," as one family talks of the 'cabbage-based diet' which it supplements by foraging for snails in nearby fields. Programs are being started to help from wealthier Greeks, but as one parent said, "unless the EU acts, we're done for."
As an elementary school principal, Leonidas Nikas is used to seeing children play, laugh and dream about the future. But recently he has seen something altogether different, something he thought was impossible in Greece: children picking through school trash cans for food; needy youngsters asking playmates for leftovers; and an 11-year-old boy, Pantelis Petrakis, bent over with hunger pains.
...
“Not in my wildest dreams would I expect to see the situation we are in,” Mr. Nikas said. “We have reached a point where children in Greece are coming to school hungry. Today, families have difficulties not only of employment, but of survival.”
...
Last year, an estimated 10 percent of Greek elementary and middle school students suffered from what public health professionals call “food insecurity,” ... “When it comes to food insecurity, Greece has now fallen to the level of some African countries,” she said.
Unlike those in the United States, Greek schools do not offer subsidized cafeteria lunches. Students bring their own food or buy items from a canteen. The cost has become insurmountable for some families with little or no income. ...
... classmates are frequently hungry, she said, and one boy recently fainted. Some children were starting to steal for food, she added. While she does not excuse it, she understands their plight. “Those who are well fed will never understand those who are not,” she said.
“Our dreams are crushed,” added Evangelia, whose parents are unemployed but who is not in the same dire situation as her peers. She paused, then continued in a low voice. “They say that when you drown, your life flashes before your eyes. My sense is that in Greece, we are drowning on dry land.”
...
This year the number of malnutrition cases jumped. “A year ago, it wasn’t like this,” Ms. Perri, said, fighting back tears. “What’s frightening is the speed at which it is happening.”
...
Mr. Petrakis said he felt emasculated after repeatedly failing to find new work. When food for the family ran low, he stopped eating almost entirely, and rapidly lost weight.
“When I was working last summer, I even threw away excess bread,” he said, tears streaming down his face. “Now, I sit here with a war running through my head, trying to figure out how we will live.”
When the hunger comes, Ms. Petrakis has a solution. “It’s simple,” she said. “You get hungry, you get dizzy and you sleep it off.”
A 2012 Unicef report showed that among the poorest Greek households with children, more than 26 percent had an “economically weak diet.” The phenomenon has hit immigrants hardest but is spreading quickly among Greeks in urban areas where one or both parents are effectively permanently unemployed.
...
He has not found work for three years. Now, he said, his family is living on what he called a “cabbage-based diet,” which it supplements by foraging for snails in nearby fields. “I know you can’t cover nutritional basics with cabbage,” he said bitterly. “But there’s no alternative.”
...
“I’m not saying we should just wait for others to help us,” he said. “But unless the European Union acts like this school, where families help other families because we’re one big family, we’re done for.”
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+ 1 From your extremely infuriating article:
The assaults were often in return for the very food or protection supposed to be provided to the vulnerable in a crisis.
Americans love children. That is the line, that no one says exists.
Gene absolutely agree with the statement. However this is what happens when people rely on the government to make things better for them. The government could give a rats ass about you or I. The Greeks want to remain in the EU. Good for them and any other EU country that wants to remain. The problem is austerity is there to stay for a while. This is the price they are going to pay to stay. We are all going to pay that price eventually.
Of course they could have defaulted and issued new currency and most would be headed out of this problem by now. Not going to happen anytime soon. The collective mentality is killing alot of good people.
"The collective mentality is killing alot of good people."...
Spot on, and going to kill a lot more...
I love it when a plan comes together. [/eu banker]
I guess chidlren digging through the trash is a nobel and peaceful act worth of the Nobel Peace Prize!
it costs $1mil a year to keep one of our war-mongering freedom-bringers equipped and fed for a year in Afghanistan and coming soon to Syria and Jordan so the Israelis aren't surrounded.
But if it saves just one life, it'll be worth it.
billions for Israel-cuts for US children's food programs-makes sense to AIPAC
Billions for way too many foreign countries in the many attempts to 'buy love'. Pathetic.
Obama, Bernake and Krugman should get at least half credit for it too or at least a shout out.
Progress.
I think the US food insecurity for kids is much higher. I know the after school food programs have exploded in the last few years.
Yes. In fact, some of the feed the leeches programs are continued through the summer months because "it's the only way to ensure that some unfortunate kids get proper nutrition".
in certain ahem.... select ... jurisdictions and urban shitholes.
You know, so they can grow big and and strong and at age 13 start squirting out more little parasites like a fucking Octomom brand automatic pitching machine.
so-the only kids that benefit are the undesireables' kids-you don't think this fucked-up economy has forced people from all economic stratas to seek assistance to feed their kids? you need to get out of your cave a little more.
I'm pretty sure the politicians and bankers kids are still eating Wagu beef twice a week. Your shining armour is blinding your eyes, hero, you won't be able to save them all if you cannot see past the glare of your own ego.
Until last year, I lived down the street from a Methodist church that had a food pantry on Saturdays, and there really weren't that many people using it for most of the time that I lived there.
But by last year before I moved, the number of people going to the pantry had steadily grown to the point that the parking lot was full, and cars lined both sides of the street every Saturday morning. Things have obviously gotten worse, not better, despite what the magic talking box tells us.
50% off, just not on sunday, we pray that day.
1. Food pantry is free, dipshit.
2. You are a dipshit, dipshit.
3. The people at the food pantry are avoiding going on foodstamps so you don't have to pay for it, dipshit.
4. So to summarize, you are a dipshit.
I'm slightly confused as to your point.
Could you be a little less obtuse?
lol
Okay to be outraged. Push for a better solution. But actually letting people starve is going too far in my book. Let's aspire as humans to have minimal settings on how we proceed.
The solution is very simple...
LEAVE GREECE.
Yeah right. Where they gonna go? Cyprus?
We already have an enough unemployed Greeks in Cyprus. No more thank you...
The solution is very simple...
CLEAN HOUSE...starting at the top.
how brave
Get the HELL OUT OF THE EURO! Go Iceland on those SOB's!!!! For the love of God BAIL OUT. BAIL OUT!!!!!
Ya mas to that!
Bookie odds in London say they are leaving this Summer.
Should have done it 3 years ago, now whats left to save ?
Perhaps Paul Krugman can share some of his cake.
F'in Krugman: Douchebaggus maximus.
To be fair to Krugman. He'd have printed the money they need and given it to them.
What percentage of the unemployed are foreigners?
Thank you Troika!
If there is a need for action it is against the powers that make it impossible for people to find work or at least eat and shelter themselves. Is this what the "developed" world is coming to?
I hope Cyprus leaves the Euro and starts the decimation of all those beaurocrats in Brussels, maybe then there will be a chance and the IMF should be disolved. If a country is out of coin, the creditors can wait till it gets coin or there is bankruptcy.
Now the bankers are stealing food from children. When does Greece tell the EU to fuck off? Go back to the drachma(?), just get it done.
An extra +1 for the nice rack...
They're not 'stealing' it. They're 'borrowing' it. And don't think of it as 'starvation'; it's more like food-based debt instrument - not unlike a mortgage backed security.
Voila! You're rich!
Can't Mr. Obama send them some food stamps, and plane tickets to come to US stores to buy food with them?
That would be about as efficient as anything else in the Western Civdump these days....oh, might need to cover cab fare too, K? Thx
Rubio, the RINOs, Democrats and O will just give them amnesty.
i pity the children they had no part and no choice in the matter...
it is the Greek men and women who i have no empathy for at all...
they choose serfdom at the hand of their banker owned politicians and EU over resistance of any and all kinds and dignity...
they have been rewarded accordingly....
stay the course and remain pitiful slaves..........
and which countryman will do any different? I am starting to think that there is a world of frigging sheep.
That is absolutely correct. Nobody is different and they all vote in corrupt lying politicians that are owned by kleptocrats who fund their campaign for political control. Then they get brainwashed by the constant barage from the media that always places the blame but never in the right place; only obscuring the actual systemic flaws. There are always some rich people to blame or some foreign country.
To me this is about time to be at a loss of words ...
"To me this is about time to be at a loss of words ..."
allow me to assist you...
DEATH TO THE INTERNATIONAL BANKERS...
No loss of words here. Feeling poorer? Thank a central banker and hedgefund manager. Then hang them!
Heads will roll, Klink!
These are the same children who are expected to repay the debt.
My guess is they will be pretty pissed by then.
No. They will be slaves and serfs to the people providing them food. A few will be sell out govt workers and they will "make it." The same thing is going on in the USA, California, Chicago et al.
You can bet the children of the bankers and politicians ain't starving.
The Greeks need to get off the stick and purge their country of the scum who sold them out.
FUCKING - A RIGHT...
what is the shit about "without the EU we are doomed" shit????
the EU is responsible for your fucking plight and you expect them to rescue you from the penury the intentionally created on behalf of their banker overlords????????
what the fuck man????????????????????????
Stockholm syndrome. My captors are very nice people once you get to know them.
"The Greeks need to get off the stick and purge their country of the scum who sold them out."
Uggg. That sounds an awful lot like "work", man. The Dude cannot abide.
This is the stuff that gets me pissed...
I think we have misery and suffering to keep up humble. ..at times, thankful too.
Southern Europes a giant 'pressure cooker' getting ready to blow apart. If I were a politician or banker in So. Europe I would be looking to get out of Dodge long before all the disenfranchised/starved youth come of age.
Desperate people do desperate things. Starving to death is about as desperate as one can be. I hope they go "Vlad The Impaler" on the worthless Euro. technocratic pond skum, and take their sovereignity back.
Desperate people do desperate things, true. Starvation is much more sinister:
Starvation is not the dramatic thing one so often reads and imagines... of people in mobs crying for food and falling over in the streets. The starving... those who are dying never say anything and one rarely sees them. They first become listless and weak, they react quickly to cold and chills, they sit staring in their rooms or lie listlessly in their beds... one day they just die. The doctor usually diagnoses malnutrition and complications resulting therefrom. Old women and kids usually die first because they are weak and are unable to get out and scrounge for the extra food it takes to live. It is pretty hard for an American who has lacked enough food to become ravenously hungry perhaps only once or twice in a lifetime to understand what real starvation is.
Steven Bela Vardy and T. Hunt Tooley, eds. "Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe"
Before you know it being unemployed and underemployed is going to be termed as 'wage insecurity'.
Another pork sausage Fritz?
Hey now, enough with the gay marriage references, Sid.
This isn't the EU's issue. The EU didn't cause this. Greek politicians caused this, firstly lining up at the trough and lining their pockets and then accepting the the terms of the Troika. So until Greeks start focusing on who really is the culprit here nothing is going to change....and I havn't heard of a murdered greek politician yet.
It most certainly is the EU's who is responsible for inflating their bonds using borderline illegal derivatives exposure so they could gain entry into the EU in the first place, I'll give you a hint he is the head of the ECB bank right now. This is more about him covering his own ass than anything else to keep those toxic turds buried until they get their pound of flesh they think they are owed on those derivative trades from the Greek people first. The politicians are all working from the same point which is naked self interest and preservation of their power structure at the expense of everyone else. And you are correct the people also deserve blame for just taking it like a bunch of battered housewives.
The thing is the Greeks really have the upper hand here if they grow some balls between their legs. If they clean house of the politicians, and just collapse all the banks but distribute the assets to all the people along with defaulting on the bonds, the EU is toast and ECB is sunk also when that dervivatives tsunami starts and they are the counterparty on it. Bad debt is leverage especially when the counterparty will not write it off and is determined to get their pound of flesh they think they are owed for it.
Yeah! What could possibly go wrong?!?
At this point are the consequences really any worse? Die by slow social, political, real starvation. Or die quickly and on your own terms. And maybe just maybe you might actually be left standing after fighting back and be free to rebuild on your own terms.
the troubled nation has fallen to the level of some African countries.
Well then all the Africans that have invaded the nation should feel right at home. Question is: Will the Greeks feel at home with the Africans? The Golden Dawn says NO.
And so it begins... the Hunger Games of FEUDALISM 2.0. Feudalism 2.0: New & Improved.
Neocon feudal lord Demon von Bankfine: "It is YOUR fault you are hungry. You could be working for food in them there salt, er I mean, goldmines. That's why I'm richer than you are. Work, you scurvy dogs!"
I guess when the rest of Europe is suffering the same conditions, the unwanted immigrants will still be getting priority when it is time to dish out the welfare payments.
I don't know why these people aren't driving to Berlin to vent their anger in the streets.
They will achieve nothing protesting at home.
Have you ever been to Europe? A drive from Greece to Berlin is about 1,000 miles. These people are broke. They could rent a bus but it would be stopped at some border. They should go to BRussels.
Ain't got no money for petrol.
No sympathy - Eldorado Gold is trying to get 2 gold mines permitted in Greece and the environmental nazi's are protesting and the government has delayed issuing permits. This would bring high paying jobs and millions in revenue but the government instead is choosing to back the environmental nazi's at the expense of jobs and revenues. Sorry.....they are killing themselves.
stateside
Beggars can't be choosers. This enviromentalist agenda will be thrown in the trash can of history when things get really serious enough. On a green trash can, if they like.
You are either a Neocon shill, or an idiot/ass of a human being.
What role are EU-issued environmental regulations playing in the Greek government's reluctance to issue permits?
what you say may be correct, but this is more asset stripping and a ploy to remove gold at these fire sale prices.
double edged sword
This is one thing EU majorly differs form US, there is NO FOOD STAMPS.
Now imagine, what would be in US, if this were the case.
50 Million trashcan-pickers?
Welcome to the land of the free(ly)-well-fed (Well FED, what an irony) people ( even if it is with 100% GMO foods ).
Maybe a lot more citizen fruit pickers.
This is what happens in impoverished countries. Kids skip school and start to roam around the streets selling wares and getting whatever scraps of food they can.
That is life folks. It is bitter and very hard on poorer countries. Not much different in Turkey at the other side. And Greece and other European countries have been in poverty for a long time. The more kids you had the more the welfare would pay. They would cover the health and education costs and even food.
Europe is full of government-subsidized poverty waiting to do what poverty does when left alone - barely survive with whatever they can get from the streets. This generation will pay for the huge mistakes of the previous ones.
Hey, at least they have gay marriage.
Yup, the PC tards have no idea what is coming...
http://gamecareerguide.com/features/1188/educated_play_love_.php
Greece actually isn't Guinea
This shouldn't exist in any economic union with any pretense of civility or sophistication
And in poorer countries the ass-clowns aren't voted out of office and given fat pensions- they are marched into the yard and given one to the head.
Little Blue Marble.......
BIG SPACE
think again(*)
*stop ffíng up this blue marble (please)
Focus on the big space...........
Okay, I did it. But now all I have are pink hippo's floatin around my head like stars after a head rush. Is that the recomended dose, or did I leave something out.
Imagine...if they took all the money spent in ONE DAY, and bought food with that, then sent it to Cyprus. Prolly feed them all for a year.
Imagine if all the money spent on war profiteering and world domination was spent on organic food production, and greater benefits for the people of Earth? Everybody would prolly be a millionaire, and have twenty acres of self-sustaining and productive land to prosper on. Good communities would abound.
Imagine if all the criminal corruption at the top of the pyramid was stopped for a year, and instead all that energy was put towards humanitarianism, and doing unto others, as you would have them do unto you. Prolly be no more corruption.
Imagine all at once in unison as human beings, and watch it change overnight.
What is being played out by the evil World Banksters on poor Cyprus is just a preview for what they plan for the rest of the world. Europe is next. This weapon of starvation is the one end of the line tool to subjugate the masses that is to be well used. Be aware of this and help your neighbors plan accordingly. If they have lots of food when the chinga hits the fan, they will not be coming for yours. Pray for all the big city people, and pray for the children of Cyprus.
Got your garden planted yet?
Imagine money was just a concept.....
Aye, and trade the word of the day.
There would be no more hedging, sound money here to stay.
edit
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E4FRtrD9aQ
Money is nothing but a unit of time, spend it as if it were your last day, for it soon shall be.
Isn't that called "Bitcoin"?
I agree. Furthermore...
Imagine their life BEFORE they got the Euro. Or before they bought (signed up for) the TOXIC ASSETS that the Vampire Squid aka Goldman Sachs sold to Greece and other gullible EU banks and pension funds. Imagine.
It disgusts & sickens me to read the blatant ignorance (lack of knowledge) and primitive/limited thinking going on, as is manifested by the stupid and insensitive comments of the 5% here, who are Carnival Barkers. Are these people Neocon shills, born idiots, or just cruel & warped beings -- who experienced very little kindness or love in their own miserable lives? Disgusting!
Off Topic: There is talk on the web that "Craft International" (a Blackwater/Xe type group) was present in some force at the Boston Marathon and was caught in many of the photos. On which side is not certain. However, with this perspective, it sure makes one wonder about Sandy Hook, the Colorado Theater shootings and the Sikh temple shootings. A paramilitary group with automatic weapons seem to be more likely as the suspect when compared to drugged out kids (to the point of being comotose) with no shooting experience.
... the question is why would these people align themselves with global communists against the American people? Is murdering innocent people "just a check" to them?
What does any of that have to do with the topic du jour: gay marriage?!?
There was a photo in that 4chan image post that made the rounds yesterday, and it clearly showed two guys who were either from Craft or were dressed to look like they were. One guy had a hat with the skull logo, and they were both wearing cargo pants, boots, and black jackets. They had earpieces and were carrying black backpacks. Whether that means anything or not, who knows?
If Craft or someone dressed to look like Craft (which is just as likely because what idiots would wear their gear to a murder?) ... then it could provide a smoking gun connection between Obama (or his supposed minions) and the Boston Marathon bombing. That then would infer that terror acts are currently being committed by the government or elements within it (think Spain before the Spanish Civil war .. communist terror teams were causing havoc and blaming it on a weak government) and it would then infer that all of the inconsistencies about Sandy Hook, Colorado Theater and the Sikh Temple can be more easily explained by government involvement than some kid who is so drugged up o the point where he is nearly comotose (like right he can shoot a gun straight ... odd that the patsies were all dead in the next two? not really.)
If a tin foil hat is what it takes, then my suggestion is that everyone start wearing tinfoil hats, instead of identifying themselves as weasly disinformation tools who try to cover the truth by ridiculing it. Right Arkadaba?
Dude, you're not an Elvis impersonator by any chance, are you?
No, but I bet you like to dress in your mother's underwear.
http://imgur.com/a/sUrnA
Yep, these dudes:
http://i.imgur.com/jCgAf8Y.jpg
Well (yes I'm wearing my tinfoil hat right now), Craft was started by this guy who was murdered earlier this year under some would say suspicious circumstances:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Kyle
Craft...Kraft... That's German for "power", right? Hmmm.....
"Food Insecurity" only to a PC niglet or a Fascist apparatchik
try HUNGER
then STARVATION
But since Greece isn't really in Europe, or the Eurozone, this really isn't happening on the Troika's watch, or in any way their responsibility...
Time to buy another 40kg of rice.
<---- I will NOT add my name to the Waserman-Schultz petition
<---- I will add my name to the Waserman-Schultz petition
This kind of desperation will come to the US also, after they've taken the guns. Speaking of which... minutes ago, Debbie Wasserman-Shultz sent out this email, in an attempt to rally support for background checks:
The gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the proposed legislation, and yesterday they were able to defeat it.
But we are not backing down. Round one just ended. Round two starts now.
Help Democrats collect 200,000 signatures demanding action on background checks. Add your name now:
http://my.democrats.org/Reduce-Gun-Violence
I say add a third option "Fuck You". That's my vote.
Pffft! Gun control os SOOO passe', Debbie...
Gay Marriage! Now there's something to smile about!
I'm addicted to Dick, I'm addicted to Dick!!!!
pics, or it didn't happen
Curious if Northern Europeans will be vacationing in Greece this year? I was stationed outside of Patras decades ago, and the Germans had a pretty posh resort down the street. The islands are their tourism lifeblood, how can they screw that up?
Fairly amazing though, coming from an era when November 17th was blowing shit up, now they are driven into pacification and hunger*. We'll see next month when the season starts.
*Greece had a large gypsy demographic, not sure if this was missed, or purposefully omitted for propaganda.
Mr. Guy Verhofstadt, you are always smiling when mr. Farage undermines your political investments. Where is your smile now? I wanna see your fascist smile mr. Verhofstadt. Right on the spot where these children search for their future. I'd like to see your smiling face right there. You are capable of it, i know.
Let them eat escargot!
Congrats, plutocrats, on your achievements. /s
...
Best thoughts to the suffering people.
No more bonuses for ANYONE in ANY FINANCIAL COMPANY...till they clean up this mess. All chartered banks...salary ONLY. All Lobbying is canceled for 2 years. Then we can focus on fixing the MESS! After two year back to raping pillaging just like all time. If you are politican taking anythng other than your salary....you have your entire network taken!
Bwaaa! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!!
Says, WHO?!? Tim Geitner? BHO? Jay Leno?
Who is John Galt ?
The gay bartender from "Love Boat", right?
I say nigger .... you say nagger .... let's call the whole thing off ! Hasn't any noticed .... I've cut way down .... on using .... the N word ? Geesh .... no good deed goes unpunished ?
We need to do a better job connecting the actions of people's governments to their eventual suffering. The one things all these cases has in common is that each one was preceeded by a bloated, people appointed beaurraracy that made wildly unrealistic promises.
We've all made our beds, time to sleep in them. If you vote for any government official (in America or elsewhere) based on what they can give you, you deserve to dig through trash for food. You've accepted slavery and sold your dignity -- put your collar on!
Now that is Fractional Reserve Banking.
Somebody must have been on the other side of the Cyprus CDS default protection of their Banks.
If some Bank took a cold douche over the Iceland defaults,how much longer can this counterparty stuff go on?
Greece was ruled a default by the ISDA so the CDS would've been triggered. Cypriot Banks were stuffed with worthless GGB's.
When the Icelandic Banks went titties up,the UK and Denmark stepped in to compensate the depositors (didn't the depositors think that using an internet bank from overseas entailed some risk? High risk/high yield and so on....
Here in Cali the city of Stockton went into bankruptcy a while back. The judge castigated the Wall Street crowd (Wells Fargo muni bond holders?) for being a bunch of uncooperative whiners and holding back any progress at all (a modest haircut). With the compulsory Police cutbacks,dead economy,etc.,I expect Stockton will shortly make Beirut seem like Club Med on a good day.
Let me take a stab at what the reality is in Stockton. The majority, that is to say the blacks and hispanics are running around shooting and looting the place while the minority, the whites, are pretty much in denial and trying to do their farming, etc. Is that about right? Let's face it, the losers are in charge. Coming soon to a city near you.
This is sad but I don't know what ZeroHedge is up to.
The alternative would have been bankrupcy and leaving the euro. This wouldn't have prevented Greece from suffering this thing reported in the article.
The other thing could have been doing something as the FED, but I though ZeroHedge was against that.
"The alternative would have been bankrupcy and leaving the euro."
That's the best thing Greece could have done. Sure, it would have sucked but this is worse, like a long slow painful death, which it is because people are starving. Now the misery drags on and gets worse. What are you trying to say?
The alternative would have been the Iceland method, and fiscal security and freedom.
Last I heard Iceland is doing just fine with a 6.5% unemployment rate.
Most of the world's media seems to be ignoring it though. (surprised?)
Load ém up with oatmeal, cornmeal and rice and beans .... it worked for our people .... what do they want .... squid roe on pita bread ? Monedas 1929 Comedy Jihad Feta My Pita World Tour
The United Federation of Councils - "We do nothing ... for you"
-Department of Starvation
in eastern europe government pays for school meals because otherwise country future would be lost
"otherwise"?
next generation would grow up crippled with all sorts of illnesess unable to work properly
In Greece, Children Pick Through Trash Cans For Food
'Trash'. It's not just for breakfast anymore...
Frank from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia taught us all some valuable lessons. How to go dumpster diving, how to fish for crabs under bridges with homeless people, and how to bang whores.
Two years ago it was the mental patients who were starving because the government was stiffing enterprise. The HuffPo was publishing Greek "starvation" recipies. And it was then on to the price controls failing, the massive protests over austerity measures and strikes only making enterprise move deeper into the black. "Sell before" and "best by" means little for someone starving and those goods are not pulled from the shelves. And of course the starving Greeks blame the Germans...meanwhile the bankers will starve them into submission.
You WILL welcome your new overlords and sing them the songs of your people...
becoming an emerging country again... is the price paid to the bankster and eurocrats
Clearly, more Austerity is what is called for to fix this problem.
The fact that there are still food scraps in the trash cans says the poor STILL have it too good.
Right Teabaggers and Glibertarians?
No, of course not, MF. How'z about more hand-outs from you North European betters? In exchange, you can keep serving them drinks at the beach!
Deal?
FOR FUCK SAKE GREEKS!! The time to get real was on that day of the FLASH CRASH when you needed to STORM PARLIAMENT arrest all the A-HOLES corrupt kleptocrats! You were pussies back then and the SHOT heard around the world was NEVER FIRED. So you will be SLAVES.
PS: Just like the US slaves in 2008
"The Euro Legac ... sorry, 'The Automobile Legacy': In Greece, Children Pick Through Trash Cans For Food ... so that a diminishing few ... can drive cars.
Like the US, the Greeks subsidize automobiles and gasoline by way of borrowing/debt. Whatever euros the Greeks can spare from servicing their (stupendous) debts are poured into Greek gas tanks and squandered.
The debts were taken on to buy autos and all that goes with them ... hundreds of billions of euros worth.
Greeks = morons: as long as one car runs in Greece the economy -- what is left of it -- will continue to unravel until all the Greeks are starving. They need to jettison the useless 'progress-in-a-can' icons now ... and use the income that now goes to the car makers and fuel suppliers to feed their fucking kids!
The EU has nothing to do with Greece's problem' which is Peak Oil. There is nothing the EU can do to 'fix' the problem other than mandate extraordinary conservation measures.
Peak Oil occurred on a dollar-per-dollar basis in 1998! Peak Oil and the credit rationing associated with it has swept Greece -- and other European countries starting with the most vulnerable -- into the dumpster. It has done so with stunning alacrity. Fall asleep in Athens, wake up in Mogadishu!
France, Germany, Japan, China ... the US are all in the same boat ... there is no way out, no recovery, no going back to the 'good ol' days' no Santa Claus coming down any chimneys with more industrialized goodies. Instead there are choices: drive ... or eat.
It shouldn't be so hard to figure out, people. Drive or fucking eat.
Yeah, drive to McDonald's and get something to eat, ya' friggin' 'tards!!!
Greeks = morons LMFAO
It would seem to bad if yee hadn't a gone on that bender with amanda and the colors on the street band. It sounds like they wiped your but clean on an empty stomach.
Absolutely Steve. Spot on. The problem is energy. Oil is real money. Nattie is real money. Coal is real money. Fossil fuels are REAL MONEY because they generate capital. Sorry metal bugs but your PMs are NOT real money. Gold and silver are stores of wealth, yes, but they do NOT generate wealth. Oil does.
Tragic scene in Greece? Sure. Absolutely. But you haven't seen anything yet. As the world's oil supplies run out this scene will be repeated all over the planet, and many times worse. In fact, it already is being repeated here in the United States (1 in 4 children on food stamps). The law of thermodynamics is a cruel mistress. You can try to ignore it all you want (as Obama is doing) but in the end nature, i.e., physics and chemistry, determine how many people you can put on this planet. And because nobody wants to face this problem*, the great human die-off will occur in this century. And you'll be able to see the riots, the diasporas, the huinger, the starvation, and the wars live on television. Yes the energy revolution WILL be televised.
*Except the military, because the military must exist at all costs.
As the late, great Sam Kinison once said, "Move to where the food is! Moron!"
Stockton !
So many people quote that Kinnison joke as supposed evidence of his "wit." Yeah, it's mildly humorous in context, but's it's hardly what I would call brilliant social commentary. Bill Hicks or George Carlin were orders of comic magnitude above SK.
There is a positive side to this story: by the time the people wake up they will be so starved and weak, they will be no threat to us preppers.
hunger is the fuel of revolution. c'mon you greekers! show us what the cradle of democracy is about! start killing the right people! now!
Yeah, but if you have a revolution & overthrow the existing power stuctures, eventually someone is going to expect you to show up for work again.
Greeks won't stand for it.
I thought "it's for the children!"
The ketchup? Yes, it's for the children.
As many other comments above already said, I feel sorry for the children, but not so much for the adults.
However, since I try my best to understand WHY things are happening, I tend to provide excuses to everybody, including myself.
I believe that the rapid change in the circumstances of Greeks is part of a plan by the ruling classes, where Greece is the hostage that the kidnappers kill first, in order to prove they are serious.
What more graphical way to symbolically kill off "democracy" that to decimate Greece, where that was supposed to have started?
Of course, the most vulnerable suffer first and most during that process.
My line of reasoning is that the paradox of government is that its powers have been almost totally privatized. Therefore, the government becomes the enemy of the people, not their servant.
The banksters' triumphant force backed frauds are able to blow bubbles that pop, which the banksters benefit from coming and going, while others suffer severely when those bubbles pop.
We are way past being able to fix these problems without them getting worse first. There are no solutions to these problems within the established systems. Their triumphant bullshit about "government" does not account for the FACT that its powers have already been effectively privatized.
The success of those who are the best at being dishonest, and backing that up with violence, generation after generation, has created an extremely lopsided, runaway social pyramid system, getting steeper to a degree that can barely be comprehended.
I see no reasonable hope for enough people to understand enough to make "democracy" work, since they have already been way too brainwashed to believe in bullshit.
The effective privatization of the powers of government enable the banksters' financial frauds to rob everyone else, more and more, almost automatically ... It is easy for them to blow a financial bubble, while tricking people to go along with that, until it is too late to stop it popping, with terrible consequences.
However, the degree to which the vast majority of people have been brainwashed to believe in bullshit makes it practically impossible for them to understand the deeper problems.
Money is backed by murder. The debt controls depend on the death controls. The sovereign powers of governments to be able to rob (tax) and back that up (kill anyone who tries to resist) have been almost totally privatized in practise, because those powers are mostly under the direction of the banksters and their buddies.
The ONLY way that democracy could survive is IF the death controls were more democratized. However, that now looks practically impossible. Indeed, even rational public debates about the basic social facts are apparently impossible.
Our civilization is being controlled by the maximum possible deceits, which makes sense as it is merely the path of least resistance, which is the path of least morality, for the flow of energy to actually follow through the systems of human civilizations.
The vast majority of people have been almost totally robbed of their power to rob. They have too brainwashed to even understand that, nor to want to understand that.
Everyone always has some of the distributed power to rob, with the most extreme form of that being the power to kill. That power was assembled and channelled through the history of the War Kings, making the sovereign powers of states. The THEORY of democracy is that the collective powers of the people to rob and to kill are limited by the rule of law, and democratic feedback. The PRACTICE is that the powers to rob and kill have been almost totally privatized, and effectively transferred, primarily to the banksters.
Therefore, the Fraud Kings that run the banks can easily force the people to rob themselves, and transfer their wealth to the banksters. That system is now a runaway fascist plutocracy juggernaut, which is going to turn more and more people into its road kill, and the most vulnerable are the ones that it will destroy the most first.
Since people generally do not understand sovereign powers, and do not want to understand, the vicious spiral of the de facto privatization of those powers continues to spin out of control ...
Needs more monster bong-hits.
i think you're ready for your own blog