Financial Crisis in Greece

[SirGeorge8600]

Yea, I've visited Greece and third world countries...big difference. Greeks can be lazy as hell (no offense)... I asked one of my cousins what he was going on the day of the protests and he said that he was going to the beach... true story. Not to mention that the GDP per Capita has changed little. Greeks have it good compared to the actual people in third world countries whom struggle for clean water, clothes, and uninfected food...sadly this is over 2-3 billion people on this earth :-( ...God save us all and have mercy on our economic systems that result in such inequality.

[SirGeorge8600]

I was just wondering about what industry and agriculture Greece has? I mean, I don't know of anything significant. Olive oil? Wine? Fish? Cotton? I read on Wikipedia that Greece's main industry is the shipping industry, but it only employs 4% of the workforce and that as much GDP. Is that all?

Yea...Greece has one of the biggest shipping industries in the world...but they are living the life of Norwegians, Icelanders, and other small countries....the vast majority of things (well over 90%) are imported. What industry is someone going to start in Greece when Italy, France, Germany, and the UK already have their products in Greece of much higher quality and better pricing than any starter-amateur industry could compete with... I guess Greek government could sky-rocker tariffs, but that would create havoc protests and I agree with them. I wouldn't want my designer clothes from Italy, beer from Germany, accessories from France to be replaced by amateur counterparts made in Greece...

[makedonche]

Giorgi

I wouldn't want my designer clothes from Italy, beer from Germany, accessories from France to be replaced by amateur counterparts made in Greece...

Then how do you propose Greece recovers from this farcical debt siuation, if not by working hard and making products internally that reduces the reliance on imports?

[George S.]

To allintents & purposes greece knew that it's not going to repay that debt.The answer is pay with what ,whatever pittance money it gets.I doubt if the greek exconomy can take another battering as there won't be anything left to sell.Really it has no right to sell anything that the macedonians owned as there are thousands of cases pending.

[Delodephius]

As far as I know, since a few years ago Serbia and Croatia (I don't know of other countries) have started the so called "Buy local products" campaign and truly almost all food products in the stores and supermarkets in my town are from Serbia, almost nothing is imported. Serbs have even started buying licenses for Chinese products. A lot of "Made in China" stuff is actually made here as I recently discovered while ordering children's toys for my store. I thought I was going to make a deal with some distributer but I was actually talking to a factory here in Serbia. I know that similar situation is in Croatia, but I don't know about other neighbouring countries.

[George S.]

Well delod in australia we are swamped with chinese made stuff especially apples from china.Cars also made in china they come in boxes flat packs you just need an allen key & a couple of hours & you can screw them together.We easily get stuff from other countries like oranges,bananas at the moment is $18.99 a kilo due to floods.We get prawns from vietnam.

[Delodephius]

Well we too get exotic fruit from abroad, like bananas, oranges, lemons, because these don't grow here. But all products made from local fruit, like apples, raspberries, plums, and vegetables, grains, these are all local. Only few things that grow locally are also imported. I remember buying some Indonesian or was it Vietnamese garlic a few years ago. Meat products are all local, except salt water fish which of course is imported since Serbia has no sea access.

As for cars, I drive a Romanian car, and most people drive Serbia's 'Zastava' cars, but they now also produce some parts and then assemble foreign cars here. Furniture is local and most products made from metal, as is all building material. Plastic and clothing is mostly from China, but as I said they are starting to produce it here as well, under Chinese licenses.

I believe a similar situation is Macedonia, since Macedonia has fertile land and ore rich mountains and woodlands to produce a lot of its own stuff. Though I am not certain as I haven't done any investigation on the matter.

[SirGeorge8600]

Well I'm an American so I can't vouch that I know Greek life seeing as how I've only been a tourist there for no more than a week. I guess they could do it Polish & South Korean style as they did in their economic crisis from the 90's and early 00's. That is bring other big corporations in to insinuate industries in Greece and have a manufacturing industry develop from there. I believe Boeing already has a firm in Greece that is responsible for building the windows on certain model planes...it would be something like that.

How many of you have ever shopped at IKEA? The oligarchs (jk) are in Sweden but on every single product you use it says it's made in a different european or asian country. My Ikea beer glasses were made in Macedonia :-) The desk I have from them comes from the Netherlands...etc.

[Onur]

I guess they could do it Polish & South Korean style as they did in their economic crisis from the 90's and early 00's. That is bring other big corporations in to insinuate industries in Greece and have a manufacturing industry develop from there. I believe Boeing already has a firm in Greece that is responsible for building the windows on certain model planes...it would be something like that.

How many of you have ever shopped at IKEA? The oligarchs (jk) are in Sweden but on every single product you use it says it's made in a different european or asian country. My Ikea beer glasses were made in Macedonia :-) The desk I have from them comes from the Netherlands...etc.

I don't know Greek business life at first hand either, but i do follow the news and articles about it. To be able to do something like that, Greek government must create a giant, organized industrial zones, closer to a seaport and an airport. Then companies would need a cheap energy supply, preferably closer to that zone again. But first of all, you need an human source. Young, well educated and intelligent people in enough numbers to work in these places. They also need to live close by to the zone. Greece have enough human resources for that?

But Greece have another problem. They are in EU zone, so their salaries would be high, therefor more costly business for the companies. That`s why IKEA manufactures your beer glass in Macedonia but not in Sweden or Greece. Levis, Tommy Hilfiger does the same in Mexico for the products to be sold in USA.


All in all, being in EU and Euro zone limits Greece`s options. You were wearing two size bigger shirt since the first day you became EU member. You were small and poor, so you entered there without a proper industry nor economy. That means, you accepted to be an human source for the German, French business life and also an open market for them, so they can sell you everything from pasta, tomatoes to submarines, weapons. Once you entered EU zone, your salaries became quite same with a skillful German. So, why would any company use a lazy Greek instead of a skillful German to manufacture their goods anymore? Germany also has human resources due to immigrants but Greece doesn't have that either.


Eventually, honeymoon was over and big guns turned off the money faucet and all of a sudden, they changed your two sized bigger shirt to a one size smaller one. Now they even wanna change it one more time, with two size smaller one!!! Actually, you were already wearing that tight fitting shirt b4 you became EU member but since you are used to the bigger one for 20+ years, you don't wanna change it anymore.

[Risto the Great]

Interesting perspective Onur.
Macedonia appears to be willing to change its identity for the privilege of a larger shirt, no matter how silly it looks.

[Phoenix]

I don't know Greek business life at first hand either, but i do follow the news and articles about it. To be able to do something like that, Greek government must create a giant, organized industrial zones, closer to a seaport and an airport. Then companies would need a cheap energy supply, preferably closer to that zone again. But first of all, you need an human source. Young, well educated and intelligent people in enough numbers to work in these places. They also need to live close by to the zone. Greece have enough human resources for that?

But Greece have another problem. They are in EU zone, so their salaries would be high, therefor more costly business for the companies. That`s why IKEA manufactures your beer glass in Macedonia but not in Sweden or Greece. Levis, Tommy Hilfiger does the same in Mexico for the products to be sold in USA.


All in all, being in EU and Euro zone limits Greece`s options. You were wearing two size bigger shirt since the first day you became EU member. You were small and poor, so you entered there without a proper industry nor economy. That means, you accepted to be an human source for the German, French business life and also an open market for them, so they can sell you everything from pasta, tomatoes to submarines, weapons. Once you entered EU zone, your salaries became quite same with a skillful German. So, why would any company use a lazy Greek instead of a skillful German to manufacture their goods anymore? Germany also has human resources due to immigrants but Greece doesn't have that either.


Eventually, honeymoon was over and big guns turned off the money faucet and all of a sudden, they changed your two sized bigger shirt to a one size smaller one. Now they even wanna change it one more time, with two size smaller one!!! Actually, you were already wearing that tight fitting shirt b4 you became EU member but since you are used to the bigger one for 20+ years, you don't wanna change it anymore.

...how long before the average 'greek' hasn't even got a shirt on his back...?
I've noticed many shirtless at the start of the latest 48 hour strike in Athens...

It's a pity that most of the World will bear a financial cost when the 'greeks' finally go down...its a cost I'm prepared to wear just to see those bastards wiped out.

[Voltron]

Shirtless huh ? Maybe because its around 30 degrees out here ?
I just got back from my 4 day vacation in this "3rd world country "and its apparant you guys dont have a clue. The people of Greece are not broke, its the Country that has the crisis. That is a huge difference when comparing to other countries with similar problems.

The amount of "black" money that is floating around here is enormous. I recently put up a condo for sale to cash out. So far I have been approached by 5 people that have cash to buy. Mind you Im asking close to 270000 Euro. Now to have people come up to me and tell me they have that type of money to buy a place says alot to me.

If you go to Greece take a trip to any rural area and you will see how "poor" these ppl live. They live way better than any of you can imagine.
The go to Turkey and take the same road trip across the country and you will see poverty as bad as it gets. The margin between poor and rich in Turkey is enormous in comparison to Greece yet on paper Turkey is an economic tiger.

As far as our natural resources we dont have much (Except for oil in the Aegean). We dont have many Industrial Manfacturing Companies either. What we do have are a lot of bright educated young Greeks that are leaving this country to have a better life somewhere else. They leave Greece simply because we dont have the resources to provide the young generation jobs or opportunities.

Prague and Budapest have huge Customer Service centers for Multinational companies because their governments are smart. We could of done the same here in Greece, but we have idiots running the place. Aside from that though, if we had people that actually cared about this country we would of been light years ahead.

Just to make a friendly suggestion, if you havnt been here or lived here than the odds are you dont have a clue. Better to stay silent and have ppl think your stupid than to open your mouth and confirm it.

[George S.]

voltron about 20% is out of work & there are those that the cost of living are prohibitive they even go to non eu counyries to buy stuff coz its cheaper.you know how greece is broke well a lot of people are putting money under their beds or pillows so that it's handy when the official words are announced.Also i forsee rationing coming in like the war years.

[Daskalot]

Honestly Voltron how far did you think you would go when your only incomes are from tourism and olives(in essence)?

[Voltron]

Regarding natural resources, what we do have plenty of is renewable energy such as the Sun, Water, and Wind. If this country was only able to keep all the diasporites that now work at NASA, Universities, and Scienctific R&D, etc we certainly would not be in this position we are in today. Again, we simply have morons at the steering wheel.