How did Greece get in debt?

What happened?

 

Simply put their socialist lifestyle was not sustainable. Robbing Peter to pay Paul works as long as their are more Peter's than Paul's.

 

That's the simplified narrative that many want to believe. However, the real picture is probably much more complex. For example, tax evasion, mostly by those who could actually afford to pay the taxes, played a big role:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2012/09/tax-evasion-greece

Corruption was probably also rampant.

 

Giving people 6 months of paid vacation a year is not a good idea.

 

They ran out of other peoples money...like we are doing with SS, Medicare...etc etc

http://beforeitsnews.com/watercoole...l-government-programs-2-trillion-2017421.html

 

its not a "simplified narrative" its an outright lie, greek spending was less than many eurozone countries as a % of gdp before the market crash, there was no increase in spending, there was a market crash followed by serious misconduct by the german banks in managing that crash

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/news/2010/05/14/7831/the-greek-myth-of-profligacy/

 

A rational sane person knows you can't spend more than you bring in without going bankrupt sooner or later. A socialist just blames taxpayers for not cooperating and going along by giving more of their earnings to big inefficient government. Therefore, in the socialist warped mind this can all be fixed by tweaking the government to take more from producers.

 

Its very simple. Very very simple. Socialism is great until you run out of other peoples money. We are doing the exact same thing here in the US and we deserve whatever we get for becoming a stupid nation.

 

Simple question, unfortunately no simple answer IMO, despite many an armchair expert claiming it's the "socialists" fault. According to that profound train of thought, every socialist country, which would probably be every western country except the US, should be in serious trouble.
Scandinavian countries are just as socialist and they do pretty well.

I'd suggest some reading instead of relying on two line answers.
Greece has had financial and other problems for a long time and it didn't start in 2007 or '08.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Financial_Audit,_2004
http://www.transparency.org/country#GRC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_evasion_and_corruption_in_Greece

Transparency International has found Greece to be the most corrupt country in the EU with very strong correlations between corruption and financial trouble.

 

Yes, but why would you want to analyze the problem more deeply, if your answer to every problem is:

all good things happen because of the free market
all bad things happen because of socialism

"if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail"

 

Greeks work more hours per week than Americans.

 

It's just like the Bush Crash of '08, banker (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)s stole the money, tanked the economy, hurt the people! Greeks wised up and voted in socialists who will fight the Bankster (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)s! Hopefully some rich, bankster (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)s are murdered this week.

MOD EDIT>>>RULE <<<

 

Next step, Greece should quit NATO, align with Russia and trade secret NATO info to GET PAID!!!! at the Wests/Capitalists expense. HURT WALL STREET!

 

You just caused the conservatives and Neoliberals to cover their eyes and then try to stick their fingers in their ears at the same time. For their ideological beliefs blinds them to reality. So the sound you will hear is the sound of rapidly slapping their hands over their eyes and than trying to poke their fingers in their ears.

While they will not be able to pull that off completely, it will be just enough to keep their ideological beliefs alive and well.

 

When the top dogs are finding ways to be parasites, by not paying their taxes, this causes problems. That is just rationality, which ideology trumps.

 

I agree. The western bankers are greedy ass crooks, a cartel of rich elites.

 

Oh, yeah. They're not paying their fair share, huh. You just proved my point. Thanks.

 

Unfortunately, that is very true.
It just makes things so easy and convenient.

 

The wealthy elites (the Aristotle Onassis-type ship-building wealthy elites) decided they didn't have to pay taxes anymore. The same kind of thing that has happened in America, causing an $18,000,000,000,000 debt.

 

they are notorious for extreme tax evasion, fraud, very high pensions, low pension age, unneeded defense spending, and lots of great social services.

they also have a much higher debt to GDP ratio than all other EU nations.

they brought this upon themselves.

- - - Updated - - -

prove it

 

Greeks need to raid their homes, confiscate their wealth and beat them to death, and end this BS.

 

Not just tax evasion in the way the French are famous for, but massive tax evasion by all classes of society.

 

http://www.forbes.com/2008/05/21/labor-market-workforce-lead-citizen-cx_po_0521countries.html

"South Korea&#8217;s hard-working citizenry is not alone. Greece comes second in the OECD&#8217;s rankings with 2,052 hours worked on average each year, and just behind is a trio of Eastern European nations: Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. The U.S. is also above the OECD average of 32 nations, coming at No. 9, with 1,797 hours worked on average each year."

 

I'm glad I live in the USA, I don't want to work as many hours as Greeks do!

 

I visited Greece as a teen this was damned common you could pay for a gyro at the listed price with taxes if using a credit card or if you paid cash you got the lower price the money going into a cigar box not the cash register. Pure and simple tax evasion and the government didn't have much control over that fines were very rare and so many people did it. On the plus side if you were like a local using cash you could enjoy yourself cheaply compared to credit card using tourists.

They also spent way to much trying to play in the big leagues like other EU nations when they were modest in lifestyle it worked better but just the Olympic Games cost them a fortune for questionable rewards not to mention other major investments paid for by debt in the nations infrastructure.