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Greece Slides Into The "Fourth World" - The Full Photo Album
With Greek government bonds at multi-year highs (up 300% in the last year), the Athens Stock Index still up 100% in the last year, and leaders all over the Euro-zone proclaiming the crisis is over (and that Greece has "made big strides"); we thought it perhaps useful to look at the reality behind the propagandized talk and manipulation. The sad truth is Greece is rapidly dissolving into a 'fourth world' nation with unemployment rates (broad and youth) at unprecedented levels, poverty widespread, and homelessness rife. Perhaps, as Germany today stated that there will be no more debt reduction for Greece, it is 'math' in the first image that the TROIKA and the Greek representatives should pay special attention to...
40-year-old Yiorgos, who became homeless in 2010 after his grocery shop went out of business, sleeps outdoors in central Athens February 3, 2013.
42-year-old Alexandros, from Serres in northern Greece, sits in the abandoned car he lives in, at the port of Piareus near Athens April 10, 2013. Alexandros owned a plant shop in Athens until 2010, when it was forced to close, he became homeless soon after.
Homeless people sleep outdoors in central Athens April 14, 2013.
A homeless scrap collector sleeps outside in central Athens May 26, 2013.
Stephanos became homeless in late 2012 when the clothes shop, where he had worked for over a decade, closed down and he had no income to pay for his flat. He now lives next to a church in central Athens and eats in soup kitchens. Stephanos smokes a cigarette as he sits on a rug in central Athens May 16, 2013.
36-year-old unemployed clerk Michael sits in the sun near a bridge in central Athens May 24, 2013. Michael worked as a hotel clerk for over fifteen years but when the hotel closed he was unable to find work and in late 2011 became homeless, two months later he was diagnosed with lymph node and thyroid cancer. He now lives outside a church.
51-year-old Romanian truck driver Adrian, who lost his job in 2010 when the lorry company he was working for closed down, sits with his head in his hands in central Athens January 18, 2013. Adrian survives by collecting scrap and lives in an abandoned warehouse in Athens central vegetable market.
50-year-old Giorgos sits with his belongings under a bridge, where he lives with a group of other homeless people, in central Athens May 25, 2013. Giorgos was forced to close down the billiard hall he owned in 2006, and spent time in prison for not paying his social security debts.
35-year-old Vassilis, who has been treated for severe physiological issues, sits in the afternoon sun under the bridge where he has lived for the last year and half in central Athens May 25, 2013.
58-year-old Matheos stands next to the makeshift shelter where he has lived since late 2011, on a hill in central Athens January 23, 2013.
56-year-old Boris Potev, a Bulgarian immigrant, lies on a mattress amid garbage in an Athens suburb April 9, 2013.
Michael, a 36-year-old unemployed man, poses by an abandoned open-air cinema in central Athens February 8, 2013. Michael worked as a hotel clerk for over fifteen years but when the hotel closed he was unable to find work and in late 2011 became homeless. Two months later he was diagnosed with lymph node and thyroid cancer. He now lives outside a church.
Marialena, a former drug addict who is on a methadone rehabilitation program, pushes away her boyfriend Dimitrios who is trying to clean up her self-inflicted wounds, under a bridge in central Athens May 15, 2013.
42-year-old Marialena, a homeless AIDS sufferer and former drug addict who is on a methadone rehabilitation program, drinks coffee after waking up next to her boyfriend Dimitrios in central Athens May 26, 2013. Dimitrios, 51, was a dancer in a famous Greek folk dancing troupe until he lost his job three years ago and became homeless.
Source: Reuters
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Greece has given the world so much throughout the centuries and the TROIKA returns the favour.
Perhaps one day the crime of genocide will be expanded to include economic genocide.
Then again, one wonders how many photos like this one might be able to take in the USA and other places.
The failure of economics is clearly preceded by the failure of humanity.
Humanity didn't fail, it is doing exactly what it always does and what it should do. The next stage will be a purge of the waste.
If only it would be the waste that is about to be purged ... I really wish to agree, but my doubts aren't that easy to overcome.
Let this be a lesson to the many of us here that did prep. How will we feel when we see this on a wide scale and unfortunately unable to help after forewarning over and over. I really would hate to say "told you so"...
The Greeks need to leave the EU. Repudiate all debt in euroes. Close down failed banks. Reduce government and military pensions. Suspend millitary purchases on behalf of NATO from Germany and others. Recapitalize with the help of the Greek diaspora, hire as many people as possible and open for tourism year round.
The sooner the better.
Finally. Some sense.
Why can't these Greeks be more enterprising like those homeless people in Missouri who burrowed underground and lived in tunnels? Take that Bulgarian guy laying on a dirty mattress in a garbage dump. Surely he could burrow into that hillside and conceal both himself and his problems from public view.
What is shameful is not their plight and visibility but our shameful inability to deal with governments and systems that see and treat people as being dispensible cogs.
That's a shovel ready job right there.
Now if he could just get Obama to fly over for the photo op.
Or you know, homeless people living in sewers in Colombia... and even then, they are hunted down and murdered by the rich hiring death squads to ``clean`` the streets...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4koXeZvAfg
Genociding the poor, what a great way to reduce poverty!
this is Spain 3 months from now .... Italy 6 months from now ... France 9 months from now ....
when you go on vacation and party for 50 years thats what you get bitchez.
A big mess to clean up.
I see this level of squalor in San Francisco every day without even looking for it. This in the midst of the purported Social Media Renaissance. The other day, walking in the New Tenderloin, in the heart of the Mid-Market Miracle, I nearly stepped into a fresh human turd in the middle of the sidewalk - with a plastic fork in it.
A good friend just bought a condo in the near East Bay; he is going to get pushed out of his rent-controlled flat, which he has had for years, so that his LL can convert to $750k one-bedroom condos. He believes this is his last best time to buy. When did I hear that ... oh yes, around 2006. In fact it the last best chance to sell. I am firmly convinced this year's buyers are next year's bagholders.
It's possible that the system will fail so bad that he will keep the condo without ever making another payment except to some govt agency. Then he will lose it when some govt agent kicks him out and gives the condo to a more deserving citizen.
LOL! You think there will still be a govt. after...
They also have ``fourth world`` types of drugs... Sisa... this makes meth look good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo37vW2SW-U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVX2-RRkH8A
And don't you worry... cops are rounding up the homeless and druggies periodically and they deport them to somewhere else where the press and tourists can't see them... so all is good.
there will be no more debt reduction for Greece
Ah, more obvious bullshit. There will be debt reduction, surely you know this already. The thing causing uncertainty is the schedule.
Don't worry! Following the mark-to-unicorn accounting numbers, those homeless people are worth millions! The more poor, the more assets greece have for even more credit! All heil mark-to-homeless accounting!
Notice how none of them were government workers? Because for now the elites need them to keep the system going.
Clearly this generation of Greeks is not likely to pop out an Achilles or Ulysses or Alexander.
I used to feel sorry for them when they had 30% unemployment. But not at 60%, and not a Molotov or Guillotine is sight. Apathetic!
Greece?
We have this shit right here. There's a small army of homeless that live under the bridges in multiple cities where a major river flows where I live. Don't need to go to Greece for this.
Having been stationed in Greece during the days of "November 17th", I'm surprised there haven't been any bombings or politicians killed. They must truly be defeated now, because back then, all these bankers and politicians would either be dead or fled the country.
There's far darker pictures out there if you want to go looking for them. E5 or E10 per day for prostitutes.
Vice has a piece on it (which is interesting in itself - like Rolling Stone, Vice seems to be moving away from shitty glamor to actual journalism, at least as much as the American market can handle, which is fascinating: Pop Culture doing better journalism than the MSM), but the bottom line is:
Someone's importing really shitty meth cooked up with barely any regard to the user. Anyone else want to look at the American Mid-West and draw some conclusions? Mexico was importing 13% pure meth until Breaking Bad went on air, and now... it's 83% pure. Marketing, at its finest. Carefully Ingested Allegory. MUSt tOned-aDS!
Try looking into Nochnoy dozor sometime. Fun little books / films. It's all a metaphor (or maybe it's not).
Anyone covering this yet?
http://www.tomheneghanbriefings.com/ABN-AMRO-IS-BROKE_06042013.html
http://www.tomheneghanbriefings.com/index.htmlhttp://www.tomheneghanbrie...
This is the way the whole thing operates. One giant screw us all into oblivion ponzi scheme. The cracks in the dyke are appearing daily. The harder they try to cover these things up the worse they make it.
I expect to see the SHTF much sooner than later
The pace of very bad things happening seems to really be picking up
So no one prepared for more than a week or two, saved any money for tough times and can't go fishing to eat surrounded by water. They did not see any of this coming and didn't pay attention to any events? I am trying to get my head around the idea that you just sit or lie around and do nothing to help yourself. Sad thing it will be the same way here on a large scale as when I bring it up people think I have lost my mind.
The veneer of civilization is paper thin.
The Med is fished out. I was in Port Vendres recently and the large fish market was a joke, almost deserted. I saw a couple of small boats land small catches a couple of times but not enough to make the diesel money. If these people went fishing off the harbour wall with a line all they would catch is water.
BTW same true in Caribbean Sea - Mahi Mahi once so plentiful now scarce.
Give those fuckers AK-47s and Clint Eastwood movies.
Plenty of this in the USA... censored of course.
"Let them eat cake.....Oh Who am I kidding let the dirty little fucks starve. We my friends shall eat the cake instead"
- Christine "Antoinette" Lagarde
When will you post the 4th World US that I see daily in the Midwest that's worse than this.
Good news Ex PM Papandreou will not have his €500 million GS & JPM other banksters paid into his swiss account confiscated.
Nice at least ONE happy story comes out of this tragedy.
Sorry.
Its a little hard to feel sorry for an "AIDS sufferer and former drug addict who is on a methadone rehabilitation program" who is also apparently into self mutilation. I know its not politically correct to point this out, but all of her problems are self inflicted, easily avoided, and probably long predate the Greek meltdown.
One of the biggest problems Greece faces is that it is completely and totally full of Greeks. And $hit.
"Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings." --Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
You know what? A little compassion goes a long way.
I sure hope life never gets on top of you like it did that poor woman.
Right on Bucky. We are all closer to the bottom than we like to think. Life can change on a dime for any of us.
Compassion means nothing when they would likely stab you and steal everything you have. ;-)
So what is the compassionate response? Give the woman free methadone (so she can be a methadone addict rather than a heroin addict) free housing, free medical, and free psychiatirc care (which she probably needs) for the rest of her life? And a nice cash payment each month cable TV and such. Oh and Obama phones for everybody?
Where is the compassion for the productive people who pay for all this? And where is the realization that a "compassionate" socialist government is what put Greece in this mess in the first place?
Triage. Originally a medical term, Look it up.
Grow a heart.
Maybe she got AIDS from shooting up, and maybe it was a guy who said he loved her and dumped her.
It's easy to blame those who fall on misfortune; a lot harder to find the humility and humanity to admit that it could be you.
one of the biggest problems with your post is it is full of words written by you. And $hit.
Why don't the Greeks just move to Africa and make a fresh start. Why aren't they at least living in a van down by the river?
GDP - per capita (PPP): $25,100 (2012 est.)
$26,700 (2011 est.)
$28,700 (2010 est.)
note: data are in 2012 US dollars
The problem is people aren't willing to work there for $3-4 an hour. If they were, they would find a job.
(imagine if Greeks were as competitive as Bangladeshi's who I hire from odesk.com)
Of course, they think its absurd to accept less pay and reduce their standard of living and this is the outcome.
But sooner or later, they will have to accept it (or remain homeless).
Right! So at $3-4 an hour they can pay the rent and not be homeless. They can live a decent life at those wages. Would you be ready to accept that. I don't think so douchbag!
It's called survival of the fittest. You are not fit if you are not willing to at least attempt to survive.
You should stop using that avatar, as it doesn't fit you. You are nothing like a Spartan. A Spartan would likely kill you for being so weak.
Well I guess that this makes you one tough motherfucker, right. Someone did try to kill me once. They did get better but they never got well.
Bankers took the home of classical knowledge and learning on earth, first turned it into a place to buy olives, then a tourist attraction and then a hell hole.
Now THAT is power.
Come on Greece, up and at 'em, remember where you come from!
MOLON LABE!!!!!
Horrible to see this. :(
That's the EU for ya!
While the Greek fucked up their economy -mostly by politicians, big tycoons and other motherfuckers- the whole thing got a lot worse when the IMF and the ECB came along. The first bailout was meant to bailout the French and German banks that made bad investments. The Greek people need to pay back that loan -without the loan giving them any benefits- and they need to pay themselves for all the other shit that came after that. We truly live in a bankers' dictatorship and the beast eats human beings.
In other news, the Syrian ambassador in Jordan just said Syria might attack patriot anti missiles batteries in jordan with ISKANDERS missiles...
2 things... is this threat for real or just BS? Probably BS. Second thing... do Syria REALLY have Iskanders? If so... uh oh.
Oh, they have them, and EMP warheads to go along with em.,
Lay off the booze.
Funny how not one of these guys worked for the government.
Will the perpetraters of this crime ever be punished?
Probably not.
I'll just go pound my head on a wall for a while, and thank God my vege patch is taking shape.
well, same problem here in LATVIA (FIFTH WORLD nation). The only difference - we don't have as many homless people as in Greece, because of our ... winters. Homeless people die off before spring and all is great again. As "dear" leader Stalin once said: "Death solves all problems — no man, no problem"
Pretty soon all middle class will die off literaly or will find a new home in Germany, England etc.
They don't just die off. Some of them come to the UK. One of them washed my car last week. I know he is Latvian because I asked where he came from. He lives illegally in a shipping container at the back of the carwash. I couldn't make up my mind whether I was acting immorally by paying him to wash my car (knowing most of the money would go to the gangmaster) or helping him get a better life than he had back home. The thing that really puzzled me was why it was a good idea for him to come from Latvia to collect bits of paper with the Queen's head on them.
Latvia is in European Union so the guy who washed your car can not live in UK as illegal.
He is completly legal in UK
not all latvians have latvian citizenship (many have "alien" passports)
Most likely you interected with such alien
Good news, the terrorists in Syria are getting their asses kicked...
http://www.worldtribune.com/2013/06/06/surge-by-iran-hizbullah-syria-axi...
Surge by Iran-Hizbullah-Syria axis stuns Israeli intelligence communityOfficials said the community was stunned by the rapid advance of Assad’s military, backed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hizbullah. They said the offensive marked a significant improvement in the capabilities of the Syrian military as well as its coordination with foreign allies.
“If they [Assad forces] continue at this rate, they can wrap up the war within a few weeks, and leave the north for a later stage,” the official said.
That means the US backed no fly zone is about to kick off real soon!
Joe: "Completions are finished, Premier. Syria will soon be under our BIS Control. Vladimir is powerless to stop us."
Dick: "Thank you, minion. Say, why is my sandwich glowing?"
Joe: "I dunno. I picked it up at the Russian deli down the street. It was a polo-something sandwich. Maybe it was Polish Sausage."
Quotation: "Perhaps, as Germany today stated that there will be no more debt reduction for Greece, it is 'math' in the first image that the TROIKA and the Greek repräsentatives should pay special attention..."
You take Merkel-statements like this for serious, after Berlin - in the name of Goldman Sachs - already agreed to 350 billion € bailout funds and...22th september is election day ???
Please....we are listening to the same statements since spring 2010. For us an unmistakeably indication that the next bailout package and an public haircut (...as the IMF demands now...) is in work.
The greek government smiles about campaign threats like this. From the very first day everybody knows that money will flow altough it is burned. This farce costed already 350 billion € - transered to US-proportions around 13 trillion US-Dolllar - repayable by a country producing olives & goat cheese and an attitude to taxation worse than Uganda and where every fourth employee is a public servant.
Meanwhile the water is up to the neck of half Germany - the flood causes real problems to many people (http://tinyurl.com/l38dfpb) - but the government avoids calling it (...unlike the compareable floods in 1997 and 2002...) a national catastrophe in order to distract attention from the fact, that unfortunately the solidarity funds in Brussel are "empty" for them - as the EU-Budget-Commissioner in charge Janusz Lewndowsky explained two days ago: (http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausband/warnung-aus-bruessel-eu-fehlt-geld...).
So Angela Merkel fobs the flood victims off with ridiculous 100 Million € emergency aid in first step..nevertheless nobody of the affected people is (...although many of them are still affected by 1997 & 2002...) complaining but set - well organized - their hand on he task like tornado hitted people did/do in Oklahoma.
Well, the German people can punish Merkel comes election day.
All nice what you wrote about Greece but the first bailout they received did not go to the Greek people but to bail out German and French banks who lent billions of Euros to the Greeks so they could buy Made in Germany. Win-win for German banks and German industry: Export subsidies paid for by the Greek, the IMF and the ECB. The Greek lived above their means for sure but the Euro is the best thing that happened to German banks and German industry. Germany went from being 'the sick man in Europe' to top dog thanks to the Euro, German labor mentality and labor costs suppression.
Between 2000 - 2008 arround 2/3 of German savings left the country towards suddenly new errected allegedly "interest-paradises" in South-Europe and house-bubbles elsewhere. Also this was a main-consequence of Euro-introduction - "the beginning of the story".
According to Prof. H. W. Sinn (ifa-Institut Munich) this capital flight had been one of the main reasons for a long term stagnation period in Germany as investment capital left the country to cause growth on the nod mainly in South-Europe - based on cheap money, previously an unknown state.
The other part of the story is well known: The domestic demand in Germany flattened for years inforced due to new reforms justified with the above-said.
The final bill isn't paid yet and it's definitively too early taking stock of the Euro: For sure the 'average people' didn't profit from the Euro - to the contrary: They are paid in a weaker currency, suffered substantial real losses and a lot of wage-, welfare- and pension-dumping. While Germany remained continuously below the Eurozone inflation-target of 2% the Southeuropean countries in their new credit & endless money-high did the contrary loosing competitiveness year by year. The bill for this development and resulting gap in productivity will finally mainly paid by the Germans themselves (bailouts, Target-II, EFSF EMS, OMT, SMP, ELA, STEP, bilateral credits, LTRO's, "whatevever it takes"-Draghi, soon (new) public haircuts, new structure fonds, EIB, printing money out of thin air (or "present-coupons"...), future inflation etc... - to shorten it: the errection of a transferunion and 'debt communitisation'.
To remember: For the Germans the free trade area within the EU was economical much more relevant than the introduction of the inbuilt Euro (in numbers: 12% vs. 2 % in growth) - the global growth outside a commun currency-zone is many times higher.
The main protagonist (...export-industrialists, major shareholders, bankers, manager, lobbyists doing propaganda...) of the Euro prefer saving gains/yields/"success fees"/compound interests in "Swiss Fränkli", keep their accounts south of the border: This are the one who profit from wagedumping-Germany & "systemrelevant" all-you-can-credit-banks for subprime clients/countries with fully comprehensive cover-guarantee mainly financed by the German taxpayers...
that's a common mistake. technically speaking, there is no 4th world.
3rd world is a political classification, not an economic one as many presume.
1st world = the west (as in nato aligned)
2nd world = the east (as in old commies)
3rd world = non aligned.
Greece now... your country or mine next year? Within 5 years?
"Well, the German people can punish Merkel comes election day"
But they won't : they find her too lenient with the Southern "layabouts"... My guess is as soon as she gets re-elected (Sept.?) she'll throw Portugal Spain Cyprus (and Italy?) into Greece-like hell...
"Pretty soon all middle class will die off literaly or will find a new home in Germany, England"
That's a possibility : Germany which is a country full of old people might suck off 25-35 yo well-trained Spanish or Italian ppl inot working in Germany and creating wealth there.
Germany's indeed the parasite of Europe.
I wonder what happened to the homes and apartments where the homeless used to live. With no one paying rent or mortgages on the property, how to the taxes get paid? What is happening to the owners? One question begets the next.
Its amazing how the Troika now tears into each other, blaming this botched template of Oligarchy manipulation gone south on each other : The EU, IMF and ECB at daggers drawn.
http://www.boursorama.com/actualites/sauvetage-de-la-grece-l-ue-et-le-fm...
If the Greek thing turns into a political and economic quagmire, it will bring the EU down.
As it is Germany and France don't see eye to eye on this China issue of Import duties on solar panels that has started the makings of a trade war between East and West. Ominous.
Now US and China are ganging up all the while the US makes overtures to EU to have a great free market "western grand alliance".
You can't be more ringa ringa roses than that in a head up ass Oligarchy world trying to stave off world wide depression threatened by huge debt tsunami signals of awesome imminence.
"..manipulation gone south" - hahha I love this (pun)
I (don't) want to sound harsh here but all of them got exactly what they (not)voted for, and now what are they doing lying beneath bridges waiting to die? Instead of marching on the Parliament with sticks and stones .. duh am I am supposed to feel sorry for those losers ?!
"This is ______________________ (insert your country) on Rampant Socialism.