Greece! Out of Control Due to Socialism
 

Depression 2010?

The crisis in Greece is starting to revive eerie memories of the 1920s.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/237488?gt1=43002

As Greeks, we must know and care about what's going on in Greece.

<----is expecting an influx of trolls who use multiple duplicate threads to rally the Greeks of the world


*sigh* I'll give thoughts later, when I'm not so tired.

My husband is Greek. His father's family lived off of his grandfather's salary after his early death because the government just keeps paying federal workers even after they die. Worse than that, though, it is a national pastime to evade taxes. Last year they prosecuted 4 people for not paying taxes! 4! That is ridiculous! I really don't care if they want to run a socialist society, but their major problem is that no one actually pays what they owe to their government to support their system.

In a Socialist society, what incentive is there to earn money? Not when basic/most services will be provided for you anyway. Many in Greece do not pay any taxes and the retirement age until this year was as low as 50. What is happening there is just a little taste of what will happen in other countries. Spain and Portugal may be next followed by the U.K. and France then the U.S. The dominoes will fall. This is why many of us did not want the Health Care Bill. We can't afford it.

You make some big leaps of assumption with this post. Greece's unemployment rate (current and historical) is here: http://www.indexmundi.com/greece/unemployment_rate.html It has ups and downs, but you certainly cannot say that people are not working there. It seems like, as AOII Angel pointed out, they do not have strict enough enforcement.

The health care bill has nothing to do with being motivated to work or not. 4 out of 5 people without health insurance are currently employed. Do you really think people in the US will stop working because they have health insurance? Health insurance doesn't pay your mortgage, your car payment, your utilities or buy groceries or put your kids through college. If anything, national health care would stimulate small business growth. The ONLY reason that I have not started my own business is that I cannot get health care if I do. I could make a lot more money doing that than I make now. If not for the health care bill, I would be stuck forever working only for big conglomerations who can afford to give me health insurance (the health insurance they choose for me, I might add). The health plan in it's original form would give me choices and options that I don't have now. It encourages a more capitalistic implementation of health care than we have now because it would spawn competition as the consumers (patients) would be able to choose any plan they wanted from any insurer that they wanted that covered whichever health system they wanted to use. I cannot understand why everybody calls that "socialized" medicine because currently, you are bound to what your employer is willing to give you and you cannot do anything about it.

That's the whole problem with the anti-socialism block in this country. The spread all of this BS propaganda about how people in socialist countries just sit around living on the government when in reality, they work, pay more in taxes so they can get more in benefits. It's not evil; it's just different. The problem with Greece is the breakdown in the pay taxes part :D !

I'm so annoyed that this turned into a health care thread. There is enough of that shit to wade through on Facebook.

Amen.

You missed the point. I will repeat: We can't afford all these social programs. The problems with Greece are but a microcosm of what may happen here. The vast majority of all taxes in the U.S. are paid by the top 40% of the earners. As taxes go up on these earners incentives to earn diminish. There is an inherent disincentive to earn in Socialist systems. References to France with high unemployment even with mandatory 35 hour weeks. Did I read that there is substantial underemployment in Greece that is not counted in the chart you referenced? I question whether Socialist systems can be self sustaining.

Employers are already talking about and planning to opt out of their current health care programs and let the Govt. handle it. It will be cheaper for the companies to do so. Hence the path to socialized medicine and possible rationing.

Blah blah blah blah blah...it's already done. Get over it! I'm in the top 1% of wage earners and pay the most taxes, and I have!

All of this is Obama's fault.

What you aren't getting Ghostwriter is that NOBODY here has said that socialism is good and we should move to that. We are nowhere NEAR socialism in this country and we aren't going to be. The current President doesn't want us to be, the current Congress and Senate don't want us to be and most of us liberals DO NOT WANT THE US TO BE A SOCIALIST COUNTRY. I'm sick and tired of hearing people saying that is what us evil liberals are trying to do because NOBODY is doing that. Did you go to our evil socialist public schools? Do you drive on our evil socialist public Interstates? Some things NEED to be standardized nationwide and funded through national channels. That is a far cry from socialism. Stop acting like we're some crazy extremists who want to overhaul the entire US economic system because we aren't.

Please tell me you live in South Florida. I need some dems/liberals near me. We are few and far between here.

I didn't call anyone out I just gave my opinion. I disagree with you about how near we are to Socialism and what our leadership in this country wants. I believe they want as much centralized authority as possible and they are doing all they can to get it while they can.

There are some things that our Government needs to and must do. Provide for our defense, interstate road system, regulate interstate commerce among a few other things. The rest is better provided by states and/or local Governments. This includes education, health care, state roads, etc. If a state such as Mass. wants their own Health Care system, more power to them. I have no problems with what states do for what they perceive as their own common good.