Greece's financial crisis unveiled

Unveiled? More like unraveled. Nice to see the public employee union thugs pitching in to lend a hand downtown, seeing how the taxpayers can no longer foot the bill for their extravagant health care, retirements and vacation policies. How comical that the rest of the european leaders are clamoring for fiscal restraint and control, but Obama? "SPEND, BABY, SSPPEEENNNDDDD!!! " Spend it like you stole it is the mantra of the entire Obama Administration, with the full, unabated backing of every liberal and nearly every member of the US press (wait, is that redundant? ). These violent riots are simply music to Obama's ears and will be visited on the US soon enough. You know, it's an ill wind which blows nobody any benefit. Bill Ayers will get the revolution he has worked so fervently for, all these years. In a way, I admire his blind persistence and the fact he (and a few others) has convinced so many weak-thinkers that the US and capitalism are bad, somehow. Greece is just th... Read more

David Cameron mentioned yesterday in the House of Commons that Britain has a larger financial deficit than Greece. Alarm bells were truly ringing in my ears when I heard that.

Pay attention, people. We're going down the loo next.

I'm not much up to speed on Greece. I mean, who is? George Papadopoulos. Anyway, from the pictures/footage on tv, it looks like a train wreck over there, and it's affecting the global economy.

I see the Greek pop. gave up goat shagging long enough to have a nice riot. Too bad they didn't burn down Athens. That would be several billion dollars worth of improvements.

Sounds like someone got a Golden Fleecing.

Between the IMF and the provisional government a turnaround plan is being devised that involves all Greek men of the age of majority selling half of their gold chains and shaving their backhair for export to New Zealand knitting mills.

Greece's financial troubles came about because of a complex set of factors. The problem is related to the country's entry into European Monetary Union during the early part of the last decade. Greece needed to harmonize its fiscal policies with the rest of the European Union in order to enter the Euro. However, Greece has had historically high debt levels relative to GDP. They have never been in compliance with the European Union's deficit rules, but with the use of fiscal tricks (putting high military expenditures, health care expenses and yearly pension costs off-balance sheet), they managed to get under compliance. They also received "help" from Goldman Sachs, who offered the country various financial products that would allow them to push their current liabilities well into the future. It involved, in part, cross-currency swaps, where Greek government debt, denominated in dollars were swapped out for Euro's, to be exchanged back at a later point in time. These are normal ... Read more

File this one under the similar rating of the Moscow terrorist attack -this should be a bigger story but domestic issues will relegate to the back burner. I must confess I haven't read all the details. . .which one must admit that it probably merits a two from me in the first place. If my business practices took me to this part of Europe, it would easily be higher. . .