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Greek Pensioner Hangs Himself In Protest That "Greece Will Be Wiped Off The Map"
Two months ago, an elderly Greek took his life in broad daylight in Athens' central square while decrying the country's traitors in government, and who preferred to take his own life than to defer his debts to his children or "fishing through garbage cans for his sustenance." Hours ago, another tragedy struck.
From Athens News:
A 61-year old pensioner was found hanging from a tree on Wednesday, in the Agios Filipos park of the Nikaia area. The lifeless body of the pensioner was discovered by a park attendant, who also found his suicide note which read as follows:
"The police does not know me. I have never touched a drink in my life. Of women and drugs I have never even dreamed of. I have never been to a kafenio (coffee house), I just worked all day! But I commited one horrendous crime: I became a professional at age 40 and I plunged myself in debt. Now, I’m an idiot of 61 years and I have to pay. I hope my grandchildren are not born in Greece, seeing as there will be no Greeks here from now on. Let them at least know another language, because Greek will be wiped off the map! Unless of course there was a politician with Thatcher’s balls so as to put us and our state in line.
Signed, Alexandros 29/5/2012”
His neighbours described the pensioner – a father of two- as a hard working man. He had been employed in ship repairs and construction sites and up until recently, he had been working as an electrician on a merchant ship.
He was facing sizeable financial problems and it was these that pushed him over the edge.
According to neighbours, prior to taking his own life, he was seen wearing his work overalls, carrying his tools and sitting on a bench in the park.
Tragic.
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the 1% will be happy when the 99% become 1%,that is, in numbers
I care deeply, about Europe,s well being. Quit Junking me! We<re all in this QUAGMIRE Together!
The Pond is a figment of { WWII}
Probably get skewered for this, but maybe it will break up the group think orgy.
Yes, I feel for the man and his family. A sibling of mine committed suicide and I know the utter destruction it brings to a family. And yes the central banks, politicians and statists are very much to blame. But my empathy for the Greek people is limited - what did they think would happen if you don't pay taxes, work 30 hour weeks, retire with generous benefits in your 50's, and borrow beyond your means to fund all the handouts.
I don't mean to be a dick but the people share in the blame.
What you say is true about Greek government workers. For private sector workers, not so much.
Take a moment and think what it will be like in 10 years when the Chinese Premier is interviewed and asked why his country is withholding the second tranche of his country's bailout of, say, the State of California. He says that Americans are lazy, they don't pay enough taxes for the government services they demand, and that they unreasonably expect to retire at 67 when the Chinese, by comparison, have no medicare or social security system at all. He says he'll be glad to lend more money if only taxes are increased to the average level of European government (40% + vs. 20% of GDP) and those excessive military expenses are pared.
Yes, when that happens you will be correct to say that "the people share in the blame". After all, what did "the people" do for the previous 30 years when all of these debt problems were clear as day? They cut their taxes and kept on spending. Back in 2011, when offered a "grand bargain" of combined tax increases and expenditure cuts worth $4 trillion, a Republican House just said "no".
Okay, I'm not blaming just Republicans here. Democrats are equally to blame. But do you see the problem with blaming "the people"?
The people elected the politicians, and yes they are responsible.
Its also worth mentioning that there were no real cuts, only reductions in future spending growth which is complete bullshit. Not to mention that the absolute last thing we need is more money taken from the population to feed the government...
Right. They weren't "real" cuts, just future cuts. Let's hold out for those "real" cuts and, in the meantime, spend away!
That, my friend, is your "complete bullshit".
OK, lets play that scenario out. So you make say $30,000 a year and you dont want to take on debt like friends do. Very modest ouses in your city where you work are $200,000. Renting is available but consumes all income after food.
Do you: 1. sleep in a tent in the park for 20 years to pay cash or 2. get a mortgage
Gee, guess why people chose 2. The reason is -as an earlier article pointed out-the cost base is too high. Its impossible to avoid debt.
Imagine also if you need a car to commute because your job is off public transit routes. Do you 1. pitch your tent in your company parking lot-assuming they allow you, or 2. get a car loan.
How can you blame people when the system is rigged? Too much easily available money.
If it were the US, I'd stop working, apply for disability on the basis of depression and I'd have enough assistance to buy a modest house and live a meager existence. If you can't make a living working, then why work.
There are other work.
Child raising, caring for those who undergo chemo etc.
That is work. But one of Love, not wages.
Actually all of your metrics presented are flawed. The metrics you are using are enitrely oligarchical based. They got you to believe those things mean something, when in reality they do not.
Credit creation/excise taxes/tariffs means you don't really even need an income tax to run a gov't. Each can pay for different areas of what we now lump in with gov't spending at large. Gov't spending isn't equal. Credit creation for certain areas are just, they are not just for others. For the others, excise and tariffs can pay for it. Other areas like unjust wars, simply are extensions of oligarchical policy. Thus Greeks not paying income taxes when you compare it to a real gov't setup means squat. Take the banksters out of the equation, and engage in programs that actually advance us and the gov't can provide much more, create much more avenues for opportunity, and tax much less. I'm talking about a gov't that creates the basis for private business to thrive.
# of hour's a week doesn't matter. You should be able to sustain one's life on a minimal amount of hours worked. Of course the truly rare spoils go to those who earn more, which is supposed to be by working harder or smarter. In today's setup, neither matters. Working 20 hours or 70 hours a week, you'll find people in the same boat because of the setup. We manufacture supply constraints. There is no real constraint to food, energy, medicine, and a whole lot others. All of these problems can be easily overcome worldwide, on a sovereign basis. Persian rugs? Sure. There are plenty of non-critical items that do have supply constraints, but even then many are still bendable over the long term.
Generous benefits doesn't matter. Your idea of generous, isn't generous at all. That's relative based. There is no reason a functioning physical economy cannot provide a pension that in your eyes in generous, but in reality is just dignified. Nor healthcare. The setup is all wrong. For all the things that matter, there is no real reason for them to be withheld or not available to someone. It's the setup of the system that make healthcare 'expensive'. Benefits aren't killing budgets, the setup is destroying the means for people to live, thus the budgets get destroyed because of the fraudulent setup causing real things that people need to live to consistently not fit in with the oligarchical direction via their number games. To aid in their genocidal quest, we also have bailouts. Cause and Effect are backwards. This is one of the oligarch's biggest success. They've gotten people to believe we got here because of entitlements. Nope, entitlements were not a problem, until they were, AFTER the entire system was rigged against them.
The year you retire doesn't matter within reason. There is no legitimacy to the idea that someone should work until they die. There is no reason someone should work until they are 65. This is relational as well. Again in a real economy, there is no reason why someone who will accept a lower living standard (yet higher than the average working pleb today) than one that is working, but still one that still allows for living can't retire at 50. Many people don't because the system makes sure they can't unless they do everything right, know people, and get lucky. If we do things right I could even see in a few generations people could retire in their 30's. Won't happen in anyone's lives, but there is no reason retirement is fixed to a number legitimately. It all depends on mankind's power over the universe. At our current level, 50-65 seems to be the range. That's where we are. It doesn't seem like it's so because they've rigged the game against us, and so they want to take even more, and they're using all sorts of propaganda to do it. Shame routine. Scarcity routine. Environmental routine. Flat out lying propaganda routine.
Even then, many people will want to work a bit longer because they work at something they like. What has Z(S)ucker or LeBron really done for the betterment of anyone that allows them to retire today if they want to over anyone that does something actually needed like cleaning toilets? Nothing wrong with making enough money to retire, but lets stop pretending that getting there is based on ones merits. In today's world merits and prosperity don't mean shit.
No one retires equally. No one said that these retirees in Greece retire and start going to Disneyworld every six months to unwind after benders at Carnivale in Brazil and casinos in Las Vegas. Most people when they retire have very low expenses. They don't make much, they don't spend much. But they can afford to eat, live somewhere, cloth themselves, pay utilities, etc, with a little bit extra for minor consumption of other things. People somehow make the leap that everyone believes they should be able to retire at 50 and be able to buy golden toilet rolls, and consume all sorts of rare crap. Thus you are really complaining that it is impossible for mankind with all our power cannot afford to allow our older people to survive with dignity without working because you believe they are taking away too many resources (that aren't finite) away from those that are. It's an easily believable lie, but it is a lie.
Borrow beyond your means is the greatest part in ones control, but it is easy to be fooled into making the wrong decision. Easy to be preyed upon. This is the part he is most responsible for, but it is not entirely him to blame. The setup of the game is that if you didn't take out loans, you were at a disadvantage (see every mom and pop company bought up by a corporation with huge credit lines).
Lots of people here in America were told they could afford the house. Or to take out that home equity loan. They've created so many ways to borrow, and bombarded with so much propaganda, and given so poor an education, no one really knows shit. I say that even though I've never had a dime of debt. I knew it was a suckers game from the beginning. Most people aren't clued in or don't realize how insidious it is. They think they can dance with the proverbial devil. Because it is the job of the private fiat pushers to fool you into thinking you can. They make it easy, they lie, they use propaganda, they use peer pressure, they set up the entire system so that you lose in some way, big and small if you DON'T play their game. I've always chosen not to play. Though I can understand why others cannot. But overall THIS is the only variable you mention that actually has merit in being responsible to the person, because at some point, common sense should have kicked in with these people. But EVERYONE supposedly in the 'know', since we divide our labor, trust comes into play, told us we could, our trust was preyed upon, by those who benefit from it. The person that gave the loans of money they created out of thin air (thus they NEVER used THEIR money in the loan) surely profited. Think of all the millions of free homes the banks just illegally got. All they had to do was lie tens of millions of times to prospective home buyers.
Now if you mean that they had all of these things UNDER a fucked up setup and expected all to be well, then I can agree with you. A fucked up setup brings pain all around. But a fucked up system isn't legitimate. Thus expecting Greeks or anyone to be blamed because of these things when it was the setup that failed them is wrong. Ultimately it was and is in their control collectively, but those that were grabbing it always made sure to obfuscate what they were doing.
It takes our collective will to beat them, but on the flip side they can singularly or in small numbers can beat us.
It's easy for them to control us, though it's impossible for them to stop us once we figure it out.
The easiest way to control us was to get people to believe in bullshit. That bullshit was real. That X=Y. This was the con of Aristotle. So much of the lies of our setup are derivatives from the leeway from the fallacies of Aristotle. He was able to pontificate bullshit in a way that allowed the oligarchy to control us.
Of course people should now smell it from a mile away, and many people do. Corruption, propaganda, apathy, and overall being dumbed down to behave like a serf worked. It was all planned. It always is. Are the people entirely at fault for being susceptible to a plan? No. You are forgetting they ARE feeling pain. You and others like you in their thinking believe that they need to 'pay' for their idiocy and that as long as the oligarchs are winning, and conditions are getting worse, then they are getting their just desserts. You are merely lending credibility to the oligarchs as the pain the sergs are feeling is filling the coffers of the oligarchs. They are playing you just like them. You are following their diagram. Their logic.
The oligarchical principle goes back to the Oracle of Delphi. It's educated legitimacy arises from Aristotle. It's been employed in every (monetarism) monetary empire the world has known since those days. A group of people want to have control, so they create the education needed to control, and everyone plays the game they created under these rules. Greece. Rome. Venice. Britain. (we were the anti) But now it includes America and of course the Euro. Though overall the ideology is still British controlled. We're just in league, with supposed legitimacy, and capability to pull it all off...until we aren't. Which is close.
They stack the deck so that if they lose this way, the opposition is still under their control. If they lose, that opposition is. Because just about all of the opposition is somehow umbrella'd under the root ideologies. That's why you can get all these idiots in Europe voting for different parties for a change, but no change happens. Because different ideologies ALL still fall under the overall breadth of the oligarchs and their oligarchical principle. Only those that know it explicitly, or somehow luck into it can really oppose them. But those that luck into it, can sometimes be swayed. Those that explicitly know it, cannot.
No it doesn't make you a dick for thinking they share in the blame. It makes you a person who also, just like the Greeks, believe in a world that isn't actually real. You were lied to. They were lied to. You both were lied to. By the same group. It's just you forget the overall picture, and how the people are already feeling far more pain than they deserve. You use their metrics, which means you cannot be free of them, because you still think like them. Not their current preferred way, but as the Architect in the Matrix said...
"There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept."
They won't be able to run the game the Keynesian way, but they'll be able to run it through one of their 'competing' ideologies that too fits under the 'oligarchical principle' and allows them to continue to control us. I'll let you figure out what ideology that is, but a hint is the only touted alternative to Keynesian monetarism. It's ________ monetarism. It's all the rage these days. It will constrain the oligarch in certain ways, thus why it's not preferred. It'll cause the number of oligarchs to shrink as the current number cannot be maintained by downshifting to that version, but overall the oligarch and their principle will still remain in power.
If they succeed, even in collapse, they win. In time their descendants, if mankind survives, can startup a new fraud. Keynesianism is just a car's bumper. They don't mind destroying it, as long as the oligarch's get to keep their car of monetarism and can continue practicing their oligarchical principle and controlling mankind into the future.
Focus on the base setup, everything else is merely a distraction that we risk everything debating. Free yourself and all of our descendants from the scourge of the oligarch. We must end monetarism or we lose, and everyone born after us lose, until either we go extinct, or another, bigger, more devastating fight has to occur at a later date. Just like this one because we didn't actually rout the oligarchs in any of the previous 'victories'.
America's founding was the first victory, but we were just one country and it wasn't concentrated on the root. We lucked into it because we were drawing from the better way which is like a signpost for now. We focused on manufactures. On liberty. On national credit. We knew the power of banks. We knew the pitfalls of imperialism. We understood much of the problems, but not the whole thing, and we were isolated. It was always America's mission to export this back to Europe. We've had some successes.
A group of people in the 1700's, who didn't know about Germ theory, who didn't have the automobile, let alone fly, and who even still used leeches for medicinal purposes, were able to construct a gov't setup that could withstand so many generations of oligarchical assault. We even survived an oligarchy induced civil war. Imagine what we can do now, with the knowledge of the actual causal factors involved.
To actually win we must eradicate the root and win the entire world. Our creating merely cleared up a symptom, the disease still festered around the globe. In time it changed and reinfected us. This time we get it right. This part of history has repeated for the last time imo, and the individuals power over the universe is strong enough to cement it across the globe for all time (relatively).
We have passed the critical mass to rid ourselves once in for all of this useless scourge of monetarism. Not because we luck into it. Because we know it, and can disseminate it around the world in a second. We never needed the oligarchy, but now the world is capable of knowing why. The world has become homogenized in this way to allow this to occur. The conduit reaches through all cultural and linguistic barriers, just as the perils of this time has (thus the lesson).
After this, if done right, the oligarchical principle and all the fallacies that sprang from it will be ditched. This my friends resets all percpetions, trends, and patterns about the human race going forward. The oligarchical 'statistical model' will be broken. We will live and build our sovereign societies in the outlier.
Impeach Obama
Glass-Steagall
American Credit System (Hamiltonian)[3rd National Bank of the United States]
+1 for a comment reply that's longer than the original post... if I were allowed, I'd +1 again for being spot-on
Take a look at the original Athens News link. Under the "Economy" section of this online English paper concerning Greece, is a completely useless story about the Greek government "handing" $18 billion to its four largest banks today to "bolster their capital". WTF? There is no explanation of what the Greek taxpayers, who are must repay this $18 billion to the ESF, got in return for this "handout". Did they just become owners of these four banks? Was it a loan? If a loan, did they receive any capital? What are the terms of repayment? If they are owners, does the Greek government now own shares? If so, were these shares pledged to the ESF in return for its bailout loan?
The state of economic reporting is ludicrous in Greece. The headlines are merely cheerleading for a PASOK return to power on the ground that affirming the bailout memorandum is the only "responsible" thing to do. Headlines cheer the rise in the Greek stock market "as a result" of PASOK's lead in the polls. Another article "explains" that a vote to reject the memorandum would cause a 55% devaluation in the valuation of all Greek assets and an unprecedented collapse in GDP.
See, Greek citizens, if you support the bailout all will be good. If not, you will be destroyed. Now, run along and vote, okay?
"The state of economic reporting is ludicrous in Greece."
Remember, half of the people in Greece today have never used the internet. They are informationally defenseless sheeple grazing in a wilderness while herded toward collective slaughter. Like the proverb about leading a horse to water, you can invent the greatest system of information dissemination in human history, but you may not be able to convince a dumb, useless mf to equip himself with knowledge for his own defense.
Sad. Chalk another one up to the scourge of the banksters running the scam of/by/for the oligarchs against everyone else.
The crazy thing is though, Thatcher was part of the problem. He could of used a better example in his note, otherwise his death might only bring us to a worse place by legitimizing idiocy. We shouldn't (world at large generically) rally around Thatcher, just as we shouldn't really around crazy ideologies whose basis is grounded in nothing, like monetarism.
Sadly as people feel the effects enough to take their own life, in their desperate attempts to find answers, they latch onto incomplete answers, that may make their sacrifice an act that pushes them that rally around the sacrificer in the wrong direction. Incredibly sad. If he sways Greeks to rally around Thatcher's ideas, well then his death might actually make Greece worse off through confusion.
As a human being I can understand his pain, I can understand his desire for correct change and the need for that person to have balls of steel in order to achieve it. But I cannot agree with his choice as the example, as his choice in example was part of the problem. The problem exists on all 'sides'. Someone who wants to generically print or cut or both as 'compromise' is not the answer to a problem that goes beyond numbers. The mechanism in place is fucked up. Thus the numbers are.
It's not about playing games within the current mechanism that we find our answers. It's not about playing 'by the rules' within a broken system. Thatcher never changed the system, she just altered the game within it. She had the balls to do it, but what she had the balls to do, didn't actually change the ideology as both pre and post Thatcher, Britain employs monetarism. An oligarchical principle.
Thatcher, Kohl, Mitterrand, Bush Sr were all proponents of the Euro. They all played the game of monetarism. It did not matter if they were socialists or conservatives. They all got it wrong, because their decisions were bound to the frame of monetarism. Thus they were the champions of the oligarchs. They did nothing real to better their people, they just sowed the seeds for their destruction. Monetarism is an oligarchical principle. Thus any ideology revolving around monetarism, is inherently a pro-oligarchical ideology.
It's like saying now is ok, because someone tangentially benefited on the margins in ways that doesn't really matter temporarily within the Eurozone. Rearranging deck chairs might make people more comfortable for a short time, but in the end the ship goes under. Monetarism based economics simply don't work. Physical based economics rooted in science and strong units of account does. Lies and games for the betterment of the oligarch? Or real measurable understanding of what is needed, what is off, which gives us the knowledge and the means to correct it?
It is sad that he took his life championing the name of one of the people that created the conditions that led to his professional and personal demise. Another example of this would be say of an Obama supporter who killed themselves because they lost their house to a bank with a 'Linda Green' document.
Glass-Steagall
Euro Area Debt: The Path to Redemption
http://www.cnhedge.com/thread-5624-1-1.html
Long Live Alexandros
At least he could have had a drink first.
Hell, after reading this I think I will go get a drink.
Unfortunately there are dozens more that never make it on the news. For the time, the majority are older people. Who knows who 'll be tomorrow.
I am 29 years old, unemployed for the past 2 years,without family,living with my parents and my only asset is a little car. Nothing else. I have to pay tax 750 euro. With zero income.I'm terrified of the thought that something will happen and that i'll need money,for medical reasons for example. What am i suppose to do?
What if i had my own family with kids? I would have to steal or kill myself? This is the reality in Greece right now.
To what do you think you are entitled merely by virtue of your birth? A job? A car? A place to live? Medical care?
I’m not trying to be a hard-ass, I’m also asking the question of myself. If and when US coeity collapses, the good news is that I won't have to repay what the bankers were given. The less good news is I'll be completely on my own.
Half the people on Earth are born into societies where nothing is given and nothing is expected. They live or die according to their own wits. More often than not they are very moral, and do not resort to stealing or suicide. The other half of the world is born into societies where there are expectations and a minimum or greater level of public services. Greece was in this latter half. It may have crossed the line into the former half.
What can they expect? I don’t know the answer. Accidents of birth. Some are luckier than others.
I am entitled to at least a chance to make my life better. Until 2008 i was on the right track. But now it's long gone. I'm not saying that i'll become a <<homeless bump>>, but it's going to be really hard for my generation.
I am on my own.
My savings is slowly getting diluted because currently I am out of work. With the money I do have I invest in the market against the mainstream buffons. Because i do having savings I dont get unemployment benefit.
In short - I pay taxes for government handouts I will never get, I never ever got and came to the conclusion that I am already alone and the government actually hates poeple like me because I do stand on my own to feet....in short I don't want anything from them.
This makes me dangerous because you can't bribe an man who doesn't want anything from you. Likewsie I have no debt, because I donj't like being beholden to someone unless I can see a profit out of it.
Certainly most people almost everywhere I go - apart from hot zone countries - expect the government to give them something - but governmetns cant give, they can only take from peter to bribe paul.
And if there comes a time where I am no longer able to take care of myself, then suicide is a moral choice, because I will not be a paracite on wife; that for me is the greater sin. That for me is the big lesson vampires are finally finding out, they are running our of victums.
As far as I am concerned, I rather be free in hell, than a prisoner in heaven.
i don't know who you are, but one day i will meet you in the burning flames of hell...it will be an honor...
Life and death are but a heartbeat
One time someone ordered me out of the left lane... moments later a convertible with 8 laughing kids zip by.
I saved their lives, the unknown radio man who spotted trouble saved all our lives.
Those 8 kids would by now middle aged with families.
I hope they enjoyed the life that we gave them in that moment.
You have to pay $750 a year even though you made $0? WTF do they expect you to go out and rob liquor stores and mug old ladies to pay your tax bill?
Exactly. It's a nice comedy script.
To add something else. We Greeks have no problem in restructuring our country and it is something that has to be done. But it's impossible to do it in 3 or 4 years!
History shall repeat itself in a far greater scale and therefore the benefit for the leading roles shall be much greater. If ancient Greeks won the battle against the barbarity of the East in favour of Europe, then modern Greeks are those who are meant to win the battle against the barbarity of both Eastern and Western world in favour of the human kind.
Everybody had something to say against Greece and its people. Everybody had something to remember from his visit to Greece or his associations with a Greek man living in Germany. In any case, they do not belong to the educated part of society so that they can have any other knowledge of Greece; know its quality and generosity. These people only know some Greek immigrants to Germany and a few waiters from their vacations in Greece. These people accuse Greece today at large. They seek for Greek people in their working environment to hurl insults at them. The so called moral German leadership had once again been satisfied. Its flock had once again hastened to execute its orders.
German leadership’s goal had been achieved. It had managed to arouse German hysteria against Greece. Germans had turned Greece into a target with such an unprecedented ferocity and in an outermost violent manner that the whole of Europe had been terrified. They had made the first move. The witch had been pinpointed and all Europeans of all doctrines had seen it. None of them would like to be in the witch’s shoes. Greece’s suffering strengthened Merkel who pointed her finger at the sinner and her stern look searched for anyone dubious among everyone else.
Very Interesting read about the Greek Situation here: http://eamb-ydrohoos.blogspot.com/2012/05/greece-among-salem-witches.htm...
What's the point of killing yourself to make a point? Even if it makes a difference, you wouldn't be around to benefit from the results of your actions. Sad.
While this man's situation appeared hopeless in his mind, I'd wager that his children would do anything to have him alive, no matter what. Suicide leaves loved ones holding a massive bag of unreconcilable shit for the rest of their lives. May he RIP.
They'll bring in a tree tax next to stop this from happening rather than sorting the problem.
there is something terribly wrong with the world when a peaceful old man is pushed to do this because of the actions of the power elite...RIP, long live alexandros!
Fuck the New World Order.
You can't win if you don't play, and you can't play if you're dead. Loser!
If he had died fighting the causes of his problems it would be different. He's a wimp, and thats the reason he's dead. You want to learn how to do this right? Bobby Sands did it right. Ef Thatcher.