Monday, February 15, 2010

Lessons To Learn From Greece


Greece’s financial woes should be a lesson to everyone. Instead of heeding the warnings of a meltdown in the European Union, the politicians in the United States are on an unprecedented spending spree. Government at the federal, state, and local levels expanded an astonishing 66% in just one year.

Greece has to make austere cuts in their budgets and the public sector employees are raising holy hell. Farmers who want more in subsidies have also joined the strikers.

The communist party once banned is now on the rise. They are capitalizing on the plight of government workers:

"It's a war against workers and we will answer with war, with constant struggles until this policy is overturned," Christos Katsiotis, a representative of a communist-party affiliated union, told the Associated Press.

Services are suspended such as non-essential health care as reported by the Guardian:

Non-urgent hospital appointments have been cancelled, and schools across Greece will remain closed. Air traffic control staff are also taking part in the dispute, meaning flights in and out of the country will be heavily disrupted. Greece's largest airline, Aegean, has suspended all its services, while British Airways has cancelled three scheduled flights from Heathrow to Athens.

Yeah we really want government health care when this can happen.

Without a responsible fiscal policy, Greece could get kicked out of the European Union. A Poll shows that 67% of Germans are against bailing them out.

This should be a lesson to all of the Keynesians on Capitol Hill. If you think China is going to put up with all your profligate spending and keep on buying our debt; you had better pay attention to what is happening over in Greece.

source:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61D0ZC20100214

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/feb/10/greek-workers-strike-eu-bailout



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