The deep financial crisis in Greece is a good time to start meaningful reform of strategies, policies, culture and business practices that lead to the current demise. It is also a historic moment to end the 20 year campaign by Greece to delegitimise its neighbour the Republic of Macedonia and prevent it from joining NATO and the EU because of an absurd dispute over Macedonian's legitimate identity. The financial problems and the political problems in Greece were made by irresponsible politicians who lacked the vision and capacity to lead the Greek people to economic prosperity and peaceful coexistence with its neighbours in Southeast Europe including Turkey. Europe must demand better leaders and better policies in Greece. Macedonia also deserves to be liberated from the destructive power that ultra-nationalists in Greece have in the EU, NATO which is preventing enlargement and stability in these institutions. Australia should also review its unsustainable policy on Macedonia and stop hiding behind the the UN resolution of 1993 which is illegal and without precedent in UN history.

Isn’t racism a funny thing? We are unceasingly told that it is utterly wrong to prejudge, label, and stereotype entire groups of people, but then we never notice when somebody like Jonathon Ariel does the same thing by praising the Germans for being “hard working, thrifty, productive, and economically literate.”

It is obvious that nobody objects when you make positive appraisals about entire groups of people, it is only “racism” when you make negative appraisals. This is something that I will not accept.

If the Germans are thrifty and hard working, why is it “racist” and wrong (and against the laws of NSW) to say that the Greeks are profligate with their money and lazy? It is intellectually dishonest and totally illogical to claim that entire racial, national, ethnic, and religious groups are above general criticism.

LEGO
Many Greeks came to Australia in the 60s and 70s and worked hard as families to build up farms and businesses. They were certainly not seen as being lazy, often working longer hours in the local fish and chip shops (where I grew up anyway).

As for the article: The solution to the Greek problem will probably be the same as was seen in the US, that is paying social welfare to the banks while they kick people out of their homes who can no longer afford to pay their mortgages. More bandaid and back end solutions that do not address the flaws in unfettered capitalism including the management and distribution of resources.

*that do not address the flaws in unfettered capitalism*

Nothing to do with capitalism Pelican, everything to do with
feelgood socialist politics as you promote it.

Hire lots of public servants, dont' worry about any kind
of efficiency, borrow more money, fudge the figures a bit
to win the next election and eventually you have disaster.

Yabby unfettered capitalism just doesn't work. How many GFCs does it take to draw those conclusions?

Big government is not what I am proposing - I have seen enough bloated PS departments to know that much of it is crud and the real service end of the PS is often the first to be depleted.

Nothing to do with Left policies or Right policies it is bureacratism and self-serving leadership within governments that perpetuate these problems. The Coalition was worse with growth in middle class welfare and handouts to the corporate sector and the ALP worse in deliving programs successfully to the public without addressing rorting and failing to get a set price on services.

Better government (for people) not bigger government. I can fully see that however you fail to see the other side of the problem - the influence of the corporate sector (including corruption).

However you are not alone - and that is why I reckon it will take a few more crises or possibly wars over food and other resources before the penny will drop. I always hope humans will come to some enlightenment before crises emerge but sadly it is not always the case.

To fix is easy in theory yet almost impossible in practice.
Let bad investments fail, minimise the profits of unproductive "industries" like banking and trading in "assets" that don't exist, also return real wages to real workers. We have a generation of super wealthy being supported by the declining middle classes and public largesse. Is ending welfare for the wealthy *really* that hard? (A. Yes! Look at Aussie bankers, miners and oil companies.)
Time to kick the money changer parasites out...again. It seems to be needed every few hundred years!

*Yabby unfettered capitalism just doesn't work*

Who talked of unfettered capitalism? There always need to be
checks and balances. But blaming capitalism for what are essentially
failures in politics, is not seeing the issue for what it is.

It was the public who elected George Bush. It was George
Bush who turned the SEC into a toothless tiger, etc. If you
cancel the police, believe me, crime will happen.

The Greek situation is not about capitalism. If you run a railway
as the Greek Govt did for instance, where ticket sales are a
quarter of its running cost, where unions force ever higher and
cushier conditions, earlier retirement ages, where doctors and
dentists can pay off tax dept officials and pay no tax, then
Govts just borrow the money to solve it all, you will have disaster.

The real mistake was taking Greece into the EU in the first place,
given that they fudged the figures. Again, a political decision,
nothing to do with capitalism, which you want to blame for everything.

The markets have been saying for ages that Greece will eventually
crash. I think they are correct. Merkel and Sarkosy will now use
taxpayers funds to save their own political skins and delay the
inevitable. Again political failure.

Due to the now blatant incompetence of bureaucracy the toothless tiger (normal working people) is growing back its wisdom fangs.

Yes indeed, it was the public sector with under worked, over payed, with youthful retired "workers", on great pensions that has killed Greece. That & excessively generous welfare payments & conditions.

Can you imagine how difficult it would be, & how much pain would be involved in cutting government expenditure 20%, & that really isn't enough for Greece.

Unfortunately Greece doesn't have much reason to exist. There's not much that they can offer the rest of Europe, & the world, except some pretty scenery.

But watch out folks, all of the above applies to Oz too, apart from our mining. We do demand people work more years than does Greece, but for much of the public sector, we don't demand anything more useful from them. Our private sector, lead by the productive mining community have reached a thoroughly unjustified wage rate.

That this wage rate is still too low for a reasonable lifestyle, unless 2 wages support each home shows just how badly we have been governed. That we expect the "government" to hold our hand, & pay our way shows just how close we are to being another Greece.

Howard saw this, & started to try to wind back our excesses with work choices. We did not burn cars in the street, but we chucked him out "real quick", when he tried.

From the riots we see in Greece, & the strike in the UK we can see that it is unlikely that the population will see & accept the loss of government handouts, of that which which the country has not earned. I doubt that telling us we must take a huge pay cut, even when it is true, will gain any traction.

So hang on folks, Greece here we come, sometime soon. Best hope we get rid of Brown & company damn quick, or they will get us there much sooner than necessary with their damn fool policies, & a desire to destroy that mining sector, which is all that now supports us.

Global warming is a very minor problem, compared to what we have coming.

Once upon a time, there were two fishing villages, each one having a particularly skilled fisherman who caught more fish than he could eat. In the first village, the very skilled fisherman had the idea that he could give the other villagers his un-needed fish in return for them building him a bigger boat. Since he now caught much more fish, he traded with the other fishermen to build him something he had invented, called a "net."

Now that he had a bigger boat and a net, he caught more fish than his entire village could eat, so he sailed along the coast and sold his extra fish to another village for something called "money." He saved his money and used it used to build more boats and hire more fisherman, and his village grew prosperous and was soon a city.

The other village had a clever fisherman too. But a central committee decided that he was greedy for catching more fish than everybody else. So they created a bureacracy to take most of his fish off him, and to distribute his fish to the other fishermen who voted to elect the central committee. After a while, the other fishermen wondered why they even needed to fish at all, when they could make the clever man do all the work and give them all his fish.

Other people in other villages heard about what was happening and they started arriving in boats claiming "refugee" status wanting free fish too. The central committee wanted to get re-elected, and they knew that all they had to do was to give everybody free fish. They then called the clever fisherman an evil, grasping capitalist bastard who had no social conscience, and they ordered him to give everybody more fish.

The first fishing village is now called "Germany" while the other is called "Greece."

Lego,
and if we're not careful Australia will be the recreational fishing village where all the used fishing gear is up for sale.

No we won't, Mr Individual.

My own fishing gear has lain dormant for ten years because Bob Brown and his Poofta Party has made my favourite fishing spot a "marine national park".

This spot was the seaward side of the Jervis Bay peninsular, one of the best land based game rock fishing spots in the world. I never caught much, and almost everything I did I tossed back. But it was one of the few places on planet earth where a land based angler could catch a small marlin or a yellowfin tuna. I only hooked one marlin in the 15 years I fished there, and he got away after a great fight.

Most anglers caught nothing there most of the time, but the place really could turn on an occasional good day. Best of all, it was a magnificent piece of unspoiled coastline and a great place to get away from it all.

To land based game men, Jervis Bay was like Mecca. Anglers from all over Australia made the "hajj" at least once in their life, bringing wealth and jobs to the nearby towns of Currarong and Nowra. The place could not be fished out because all of the fish that the anglers chased were migratory pelagic species. The Kingies were so big that the only thing that could stop them was a tow truck. I hooked 10 on one day, lost seven, and tossed the other three back.

That is why I hate greenies and love AIDS.

"lead by the productive mining community " - hang on Hasbeen, the mining community is profitable, not necessarily productive. There are huge levels of waste in mining operations, oft lamented by those working in the industry that were trained under more austere conditions.

Howard was the one who ramped up "family welfare", and cut taxes on the back of the last mining boom. Much better to have either saved the excess or put it back into infrastructure development. Both sides of politics are just as quick to pander to the masses!

Just goes to show why small minded people can be trusted, hey LEGO:)

http://mpa.nsw.gov.au/pdf/jbmp-zoning-plan-user-guide-map-2011.pdf

"That is why I hate greenies and love AIDS." Oh that's whats wrong with you:) well remember to wear a condom next time:) and stay away from Nimbin...lol...you will all thank the greens in the end.

Oh dear:)

LEAP

Hay Gal, I only said Howard saw the problem, not that he, or anyone else including me, had the right idea about how to fix it.

You would think that the people of Greece, & the UK could see where they are heading, but it appears they can't.

We have seen the same scenario played out in the UK about 40 years ago, when militant unions destroyed their manufacturing industry, [starting with automotive] then their mining.

None of their political parties had any idea how to fix it, & the unions, & bleeding hearts, wouldn't have let them anyway.

They were saved, in the short term, by north sea oil. As that runs out they are in even greater poo than before, with stupid greenie excesses adding to their problems this time.

If this doesn't look pretty much like what's happening here to you, you're not looking too closely. Yes mining is dreadfully wasteful, but it's all that pays our way now. As neither side of politics are prepared to trim our snowball of a public service, I afraid we're all rolling down hill with then. God help us when the mines run dry.

I would love to be pontificating with "all the answers", but I'm damned If I can see one, other than a complete crash, & new start, which is not the future I'd hoped my kids had to look forward to.

I dont miss what you are saying at all Hasbeen, just that I mistakenly thought you were heaping praise at Howards door. There is a constant whinge that we are amongst the most highly taxed in the world, but looking at a schedule of individual and company taxes in last weeks BRW, yes Australia is on the higher end (certainly not the highest), the countries with low taxation..... yep Greece, ireland, Portgual etc etc. I dont think that we will end up where they are in a hurry (for starters their biggest issue is Govt debt, and we still dont have much in the scheme of things). But there are significant areas for reform in taxation and welfare. For starters, put welfare on a marginal system like taxation, rather than a phase-out with each extra dollar earned. Its a little harsh for those people that will be bumped up over the next threshold cut-back, but more incentive for those within a threshold to work harder and earn more (rather than cop an effective tax rate of 70%) - and yes I know the arguments about it being a safety-net and not a right, but it needs to be structured to ensure that it is not a deterrent to people to be earning more, otherwise they wont.

I dont think that we will end up where they are in a hurry
Country Gal,
The live beef export ban will see to a quickening of this downward trend. Greece may look not so pale in comparison to Australia if Labor doesn't get voted out soon. What we in Australia got to accept is that we need to do something very soon to curb the insane Public service machine. We need to freeze & in many cases also cut public service wages. Unless you can suggest how we can continue without getting worse.

Hasbeen,

The retirement age in Greece is about middle range for OECD countries.

http://topforeignstocks.com/wp/2010/02/09/a-review-of-retirement-age-in-oecd-countries/

However, Greece may be a warm up exercise for what happens if the US goes under, and is unable to pay the interest on its debts, with estimates of over $13 trillion dollars in debts to pay, and still borrowing money at over $160 million dollars per hour.

If the value of the US dollar declines, what is left of much of Australia's export industry also declines, and if coal prices were to decline to what they were in the year 2000, Australia would also be in the same situation as Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and also France, UK etc.

You are correct in that climate change is not the greatest immediate threat to the world.

Did you really have to bring them into it vanna? I'm trying to avoid thinking about how bad it can get if the US continues as it's going.

Unfortunately with that idiot Obama, doing a Brown, they are likely to beat us to the "Greek" status. Without the US market, China has no need of our raw materials, so we won't be far behind. With the next US election being so important to our future, it's a pity we don't get a say in it.

At least people wouldn't get into financial trouble with excess consumer purchases, the country wouldn't have the foreign exchange to buy the stuff, & it is for sure we couldn't make most of it here any more. All that technology we once had is about as modern as a horse & cart today.

Perhaps it's time to listen to the gladiators of Rome, when they advised to eat, drink & be merry, because tomorrow doesn't look all that great.

So hang on tight, the ride is likely to get very rough for this little country, with it's first world pay rates, & services, supported by a third world economy

Greece should do what Iceland has done.Refuse the bailouts and austerity and establish their own Govt central bank that creates all its' currency needs.The private Central Banks of Europe who own the Euro as just depreciating everyones wealth/labour by creating too much of it and bailing out their mates.

Get rid if the private central banks.Dakota in the USA has its' own Govt bank and it is in good finanacial shape.Sure cut back on the PS and the lurks of the elites but the root cause are the private central banks.

Interesting example, Arjay.

>>Greece should do what Iceland has done.Refuse the bailouts and austerity and establish their own Govt central bank that creates all its' currency needs.<<

Iceland has had a Central Bank, owned by the government, and in its present form, for fifty years.

And far from creating "all its' currency needs", it allowed the commercial banking sector to go load up debt to the tune of close to six times the country's GDP, before the game fell apart in 2008.

Also, they haven't exactly been refusing bailouts.

As recently as June 3rd, the country managed to persuade the IMF to come to the party for the fifth time, with a further $225m in aid. And only last week, the government borrowed another 62 million Euros via a bond issue, that valued their currency at 210kr. per euro. Which compares with the mid-rate of 165kr, by the way. So they even have to buy their hard currency at a massive 22% discount, despite the fact that the krone is already half its value of four years ago.

And this is the example you offer Greece?

That's not doing them any favours, for sure.

Or is this yet another example of your failure to check even the simplest of fiscal facts, Arjay.