Philosophy Now Forum

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........................................................Youth unemployment in Greece and Spain above 50 percent





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...AND, it's on it's way up !




...a lost generation...




Is there a particular economic philosophy that is taking Greece into this seemingly dire economic reality?



Is there a nobility or moral initiative that Greece politicians are working to impose?




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Bill Wiltrack wrote:

Is there a particular economic philosophy that is taking Greece into this seemingly dire economic reality?



Is there a nobility or moral initiative that Greece politicians are working to impose?

The Greek tragedy is a result to the governmental negligence , failure or disability to reduce the rates of national debt for a decade of time . When a government overlooks a 100% national debt of the total income or GDP and let it go up till the situation reaches the edge of precipice , then this should be considered a failure and a moral crime in my opinion committed by the Greek politicians who were in charge in past years .

Bill Wiltrack wrote:Is there a particular economic philosophy that is taking Greece into this seemingly dire economic reality?

There are various reasons for Greece's situation and they are mainly political rather than economic ones. The first was allowing Greece to enter into the Euro for political reasons when they were economically and politically not ready to do so. This allowed their govt to borrow from the markets at interest rates that applied to the Germans, which they happily did so to support their second problem, an over reliance on the public sector to provide employment and an unwillingness to restructure due to fear of challenging the unions. Thirdly, and the biggy, they didn't pay their taxes or at least those that were sucking at the EU teat didn't.

Is there a nobility or moral initiative that Greece politicians are working to impose?

Yes, to pay one's taxes and to reduce using others taxes to pay for one's lifestyle and to reduce the over-reliance on the public sector and create actual profitable businesses.

It's still in the balance that Greece, Spain, Portugal, et al will be able to remain in the Euro as social unrest may well push their public back to the far-right which may well collapse the EU itself as if they default then France and Italy will be in big trouble. If they stay in then there is going to have to be a great banking reform as the Germans are not willing to pay unless the EU countries agree to having their fiscal polices run and overseen by the EU rather than their national politicians, in effect a closer step to a federal Europe. If this happens then I think the UK will leave as we have a massive over reliance upon our banking sector and our vested political interests won't allow this. Add to that that the right-wing press, i.e. Murdoch, is rabidly anti-EU as they block his empire building and we'll more than likely be out as our pro-europeans are incompetent at selling the pluses.