Capitalism Explained

How a third world country like that ever got in the EU is a mystery

You know, I'm getting a little annoyed at some of these attitudes, and so I am going to pose a question to all of the people here who think it appropriate to slag off on other nations.

Germany is a nation with few resources, yet is the greatest manufacturing economies in Europe, with a fantastic standard of living. The Germans are generally a very polite, hard working bunch that recovered from decimation in a mere 70 years.

Japan is pretty much a burnt out volcano sticking up out of the Pacific Ocean, yet has a manufacturing economy and complementary standard of living that is the envy of most countries. Japan is full of also very polite citizens with fantastic social cohesion, that also recovered from decimation 70 years ago, including being bombed with a nuclear weapon, twice.

Australia has a standard of living about as good as that in Germany and Japan. However, given that we have the highest per capita resources on the planet, is it really appropriate that we condescend to any nation at all?

I mean, really - if Australia was a child, it would be the spoiled little rich kid in the room.

As a nation that cannot manufacture its own Corolla, I think it best if aussies all thank the Lord, the Holy Spirit, Satan, Buddha, all those weird indian deities with 12 arms, and every other supreme being conceivable to human thought before knocking other countries because really, if we weren't sitting on a pile of mineral wealth, I doubt we'd be sitting quite so pretty.

Agree or disagree? :)
 
I know a lot of Greeks (and Italians) who are very hard workers and very industrious. I also know some at the other end of the scale. I haven't seen any real evidence to conclude one group of people as more or less industrious than any others.

I know quite a lot of Greeks, and am related to a large Greek family.

It seems to me that the majority of the older Greeks work their bums off and are frugal and shrewd. But almost all of them seem to have this crazy idea that having children who appear rich somehow reflects well on them, and so have have spoiled their kids beyond measure - even when the kids are adults in their 30s and 40s. As a result, most of the younger Greeks I know are lazy, wasteful and naive.

I've no doubt this behaviour is not restricted to the Greeks, but I sure have seen a lot of it from them.
 
I know quite a lot of Greeks, and am related to a large Greek family.

It seems to me that the majority of the older Greeks work their bums off and are frugal and shrewd. But almost all of them seem to have this crazy idea that having children who appear rich somehow reflects well on them, and so have have spoiled their kids beyond measure. As a result, most of the younger Greeks I know are lazy, wasteful and naive.

I've no doubt this behaviour is not restricted to the Greeks, but I sure have seen a lot of it from them.

Yeah but (don't you love that).....

this is the diaspora...
 
Yeah but (don't you love that).....

this is the diaspora...

I suspect the older Greeks left a country with a lot less opportunity than was around when they got to Australia, so they took advantage of it (and good on them for it too). It just seems like such a shame for that diligence, intelligence and work ethic not to be passed along in so many cases.
 
I know quite a lot of Greeks, and am related to a large Greek family.

It seems to me that the majority of the older Greeks work their bums off and are frugal and shrewd. But almost all of them seem to have this crazy idea that having children who appear rich somehow reflects well on them, and so have have spoiled their kids beyond measure - even when the kids are adults in their 30s and 40s. As a result, most of the younger Greeks I know are lazy, wasteful and naive.

I've no doubt this behaviour is not restricted to the Greeks, but I sure have seen a lot of it from them.

The Greek neighbour near my folks' house takes out the trash for her children - and her children are at least 40-something with kids and everything.
 
I mean, really - if Australia was a child, it would be the spoiled little rich kid in the room.

As a nation that cannot manufacture its own Corolla, I think it best if aussies all thank the Lord, the Holy Spirit, Satan, Buddha, all those weird indian deities with 12 arms, and every other supreme being conceivable to human thought before knocking other countries because really, if we weren't sitting on a pile of mineral wealth, I doubt we'd be sitting quite so pretty.

Agree or disagree? :)

Yeah; agree mostly.

We have a very good standard of living here - why would so many people be trying to move here otherwise.

About the Corolla scenario; it is sad we don't have hardly any of this type of production/manufacturing now...

We got what we asked for - and that is what has killed it all off - we wanted a ton of worker's conditions and rights, and the cost has been way less manufacturing jobs.

The big manufacturing boys have taken the bat and ball and moved OS where the labour and tax regimes are better priced.

The next decline is now happening and that is in the service jobs that can be done by phone/internet etc, and are all moving OS.
 
Shine the Light and Watch them Scatter

How a third world country like that ever got in the EU is a mystery

"Greece was accepted into the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union by the European Council on 19 June 2000, based on a number of criteria (inflation rate, budget deficit, public debt, long-term interest rates, exchange rate) using 1999 as the reference year. After an audit commissioned by the incoming New Democracy government in 2004, Eurostat revealed that the statistics for the budget deficit had been under-reported.[56]
Most of the differences in the revised budget deficit numbers were due to a temporary change of accounting practices by the new government, i.e., recording expenses when military material was ordered rather than received. However, it was the retroactive application of ESA95 methodology (applied since 2000) by Eurostat, that finally raised the reference year (1999) budget deficit to 3.38% of GDP, thus exceeding the 3% limit. This led to claims that Greece (similar claims have been made about other European countries like Italy[57]) had not actually met all five accession criteria, and the common perception is that Greece entered the Eurozone through "falsified" deficit numbers."

(per Wikipedia)

...LIES ,LIES and DAMN STATISTICS
 
Australia has a standard of living about as good as that in Germany and Japan. However, given that we have the highest per capita resources on the planet, is it really appropriate that we condescend to any nation at all?

I mean, really - if Australia was a child, it would be the spoiled little rich kid in the room.

As a nation that cannot manufacture its own Corolla, I think it best if aussies all thank the Lord, the Holy Spirit, Satan, Buddha, all those weird indian deities with 12 arms, and every other supreme being conceivable to human thought before knocking other countries because really, if we weren't sitting on a pile of mineral wealth, I doubt we'd be sitting quite so pretty.

Agree or disagree?

Check out the thread

Too Much Luck: The Mining Boom and Australia's Future

I thought as Aussies we poke fun at anything, no one takes the mickey out of us more than ourselves?

I saw this cartoon and thought it appropriate to the thread

picture.php
 
do you actually find humour in this **** ?

Yep - because Australian's have this wonderful ability to laugh at themselves and take the mickey ... and somehow expect other countries to be able to do the same.

Sadly some lack this quirk of humour.

Didn't I read on a thread somewhere that Greece has been bankrupt half a dozen times in the last 200 years? Surely that doesn't bode well for a system that apparently "was doing fine until the Euro came along"?

As for "spending the money thrown at them" ... don't we, on SS, tell people to take personal responsibility - and rip into those who spend like there's no tomorrow, and then bleat that they cannot afford their bills? Why is that personal responsibility, on a personal level, suddenly different from a country level?

Hey - I've been down that overextended path. It ain't pretty. Scraped out by the skin of my nose, leaving a lot of blood on the concrete. Take full responsibility for the situation, paid all my debts on time and learnt a big time, kick up the pants lesson. Unfortunately some never learn (ie, being bankrupt over and over again in the last 200 years)
 
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Yep - because Australian's have this wonderful ability to laugh at themselves and take the mickey ... and somehow expect other countries to be able to do the same.Thanks, I am Australian right ?

Sadly some lack this quirk of humour. Possibly

Didn't I read on a thread somewhere that Greece has been bankrupt half a dozen times in the last 200 years? Surely that doesn't bode well for a system that apparently "was doing fine until the Euro came along"?I don;t know lizzie... Did you or did you not ? Whata year was it 200 years ago and who was running Greece at the time :confused: ? It's OK not to know, you don;t have to know everything, but that would suggest that not eveyrthing I say is automatically

As for "spending the money thrown at them" ... don't we, on SS, tell people to take personal responsibility - and rip into those who spend like their's no tomorrow, and then bleat that they cannot afford their bills? Why is that personal responsibility on a personal level suddenly different from a country level?

Hey - I've been down that overextended path. It ain't pretty. Scraped out by the skin of my nose, leaving a lot of blood on the concrete. Take full responsibility for the situation, paid all my debts on time and learnt a big time, kick up the pants lesson. Unfortunately some never learn (ie, being bankrupt over and over again in the last 200 years)

What I am suggesting is it is not as simple as being reported and swallowed by many that a bunch of lazy greek people who by natyure can;t do any better causae there is something wrong with them, got themselves into this alone.

I am saying I do not think it is that simple. I am suggesting others had a hand in making and letting this happen and I wish i was wrong, but I can't see how that is. There's no money in Greece right ?

I love having a go at myself... when the olympics were on, there were some funny jokes about not finsishing preparations in time.. .but then, the jokes got to the point where they were not making fun, they were ridiculing and lying - things were actually finished and being reported in humours reports as unfinished with no hpp[e of getting finished... I felt the same similar sting in the the "jokes" here.... Sometimes, those making the jokes have a responsibility to not make the jokes really S H 1 T jokes... it not always be the listener's fault
 
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do you actually find humour in this **** ? seriously, this is what rocks your boat ?


fck me

Yeah. I know many Greeks and they would laugh at me making an advance payment on an unfinished building job. I also know that almost all Greeks I've met are plucky fighters so the current crisis will pass they will weather it and then will move on in a few years.

As for my rocking boat? As a small business owner I say my boat was torpedoed and sunk by the GFC and our federal government is machine gunning survivors.
 
Yeah; agree mostly.

We have a very good standard of living here - why would so many people be trying to move here otherwise.

About the Corolla scenario; it is sad we don't have hardly any of this type of production/manufacturing now...

We got what we asked for - and that is what has killed it all off - we wanted a ton of worker's conditions and rights, and the cost has been way less manufacturing jobs.

The big manufacturing boys have taken the bat and ball and moved OS where the labour and tax regimes are better priced.

The next decline is now happening and that is in the service jobs that can be done by phone/internet etc, and are all moving OS.
Agree with what you said, apart from the "we wanted a ton of workers conditions and rights, and the cost has been way less manufacturing jobs" part.

I personally blame politicians in power since WW2 for this, and think that there is absolutely no reason that we could not have workers conditions and rights in a manufacturing plus resource economy.

If the Germans picked themselves up off the floor in that time despite their tribulations, my view is that Australia as a nation has been complacent. The Australia of today should be viewed as a "worst case scenario" if looked at by somebody standing at the tail end of WW2.

We should be a self sufficient nation that is the envy of the world, rather than the hangers on and boot lickers that we have become.
 
Yep - because Australian's have this wonderful ability to laugh at themselves and take the mickey ... and somehow expect other countries to be able to do the same.

Sadly some lack this quirk of humor.
I am Australian. I have a pretty good sense of humor.

Unfortunately, since I am burdened with both a human compassion and understanding of what is happening in Greece/Italy/Spain/Ireland/Portugal, I am unable to make jokes about it because all I see is injustice, and such jokes would be in very bad taste.

Didn't I read on a thread somewhere that Greece has been bankrupt half a dozen times in the last 200 years? Surely that doesn't bode well for a system that apparently "was doing fine until the Euro came along"?
When, in the last 200 years, have riots been seen for 5 years straight in Greece? When did people eat out of dumpsters? When was there youth unemployment in excess of 50%?

In case you missed it, Greece is on fire.

As for "spending the money thrown at them" ... don't we, on SS, tell people to take personal responsibility - and rip into those who spend like there's no tomorrow, and then bleat that they cannot afford their bills? Why is that personal responsibility, on a personal level, suddenly different from a country level?
I'll forgive you for this wrongheaded statement because you are ignorant of what is happening and still can't differentiate between all Greeks, and the small percentage of Greeks who were responsible.

In short: the people who caused the mess are not the ones being asked to pay for it. The Greeks who caused the mess have already left Greece and parked their stolen billions elsewhere in the world.

Hey - I've been down that overextended path. It ain't pretty. Scraped out by the skin of my nose, leaving a lot of blood on the concrete. Take full responsibility for the situation, paid all my debts on time and learnt a big time, kick up the pants lesson. Unfortunately some never learn (ie, being bankrupt over and over again in the last 200 years)

A 77 year old Greek pensioner committed suicide in public in Greece yesterday. He had never drawn a government pension. He was a pharmacist, and paid 20% of his wage into a private pension system for his entire working life. The government reduced that pension by 50%, even though it was not theirs, plunging him into immediate poverty.

He left a suicide note saying that he would rather commit suicide and not be a burden on his children, digging through the trash for food, because he had paid into a pension his whole life in order to live with dignity. He walked into a public square and shot himself in the head.

Do not compare your economic mistakes to what is happening over there.
 
The article is correct. An appropriate quote in regards to Australian Leadership would be "Politicians think of the next election. Statesmen think of the next generation".

I thought as Aussies we poke fun at anything, no one takes the mickey out of us more than ourselves?
Yes, but in this case we're poking fun at others in very bad taste. Laughing at people dispossessed and eating out of dumpsters doesn't rate on my laughometer.

I saw this cartoon and thought it appropriate to the thread

picture.php

There is a God missing from the picture, which is the average citizen. The name of the God would be Whythefukus?
 
I am Australian. I have a pretty good sense of humor.

Unfortunately, since I am burdened with both a human compassion and understanding of what is happening in Greece/Italy/Spain/Ireland/Portugal, I am unable to make jokes about it because all I see is injustice, and such jokes would be in very bad taste.


When, in the last 200 years, have riots been seen for 5 years straight in Greece? When did people eat out of dumpsters? When was there youth unemployment in excess of 50%?

In case you missed it, Greece is on fire.


I'll forgive you for this wrongheaded statement because you are ignorant of what is happening and still can't differentiate between all Greeks, and the small percentage of Greeks who were responsible.

In short: the people who caused the mess are not the ones being asked to pay for it. The Greeks who caused the mess have already left Greece and parked their stolen billions elsewhere in the world.



A 77 year old Greek pensioner committed suicide in public in Greece yesterday. He had never drawn a government pension. He was a pharmacist, and paid 20% of his wage into a private pension system for his entire working life. The government reduced that pension by 50%, even though it was not theirs, plunging him into immediate poverty.

He left a suicide note saying that he would rather commit suicide and not be a burden on his children, digging through the trash for food, because he had paid into a pension his whole life in order to live with dignity. He walked into a public square and shot himself in the head.

Do not compare your economic mistakes to what is happening over there.

Yes it't not a joke but everything you said it is.
 
Yes it't not a joke but everything you said it is.
I meant "funny joke".

Anyway I challenge all of those people who think Aussies should poke fun at ourselves go and start giggling at the nearest homeless person eating out of a dumpster. When you wake up with a big bruise on your head, ask yourself "why did that happen?" :)
 
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