Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
@Ted, Fine and I suppose two days ago when you said I "didn't have a clue!!" and that if you were my boss, you'd fire me, you were just being neighborly. Sure, whatever you say.
"From an unimpeachable source, the OECD, a very different picture emerges: Greeks are among the hardest-working labourers in the Western world, with 2,027 hours per worker in 2013. Italians worked 1,752, Spaniards 1,665 and Norwegians 1,408. Now what about the industrious Germans? A paltry 1,388! So much for laziness.
Ah, the wise observer will remark: the northern Europeans are much more productive. This is true. In the productivity stakes (best GDP output per hour worked), Germany is indeed first, followed, rather surprisingly by the pastis-drinking bon vivant French — another stereotype biting the dust.
Some of this productivity is due to better organization, but most of it is attributable to the use of more “capital,” that is, machines and technology. In fact, the long term trend for the Western World as a whole has for the last 200 years and until a couple of decades ago, has been quite straightforward: work less and earn more."
A picture of an industrious civilization, but with virtually no major industrial or international commercial base. It is a fractured small-agriculture, small shop-owner, tourist service oriented economy, as I said above. And we had no problems bending the rules when it suited our own cold-war purposes, did we? Or were the Greeks all really hard working at that time, but have become totally lazy since then? Is that your story, Ted?
"Americans who haven’t been paying much attention to the collapse of Greek socialism have been missing a very instructive lesson in where their own country may be heading, for Greece is the end stage of Obama-style debt-fueled dependency politics."
Sure thing- let's tie in Obama to Greece, along with everything else that can possibly go wrong in the entire world. Give it a rest, Kevin. It gets very, very old. If I need to hear crap like this I know where Fox and Russ are.
This from those who brought us from a balanced budget to a debt-fueled "off the books" war in Iraq, just to take care of unfinished family business. That's about the only thing you haven't yet blamed Obama for, but I'm sure you'll come up with something.
Edit: Wait... wait... I forgot! It's all Obama's fault for "not finishing" what you-all started.
Please tolerate opinions from the right as the left expects the right to tolerate opinions from the left. Tolerance is in fact bidirectional.
LOL. What a world it would be if that actually happened.
There's little tolerance of opposing political speech in this country today in either direction and political discussions on this board rarely ever go well.
@Scott: "political discussions on this board rarely ever go well." That's exactly why politics and religion should not be part of a Mutual Fund Discussion Board. There a plenty of social media websites for that. Regards, Ted
>> simply was quoting from your article which I believe is generally true about the attitude of many Greek's toward work and leisure.
Ted, jeez, dude, you blew it, totally. I think you have kvetched about some here not reading fully or properly, or citing correctly. You done effed the pooch here. Man up to it.
kevindow, your notions are false equivalence, totally, one of the major banes of the day. Data, reality, all that, have a fully 'liberal' bias. Socialism, seriously? Read up, starting with the Montreal article. Then perhaps this:
The latest news from Bloomberg HK reports that the Greek finance minister wants debt restructuring as part of a deal. If the vote come back yes, he will resign.
This just keeps going on and on. Asia markets paid no attention. They were all up except Shanghai again.
Goodness, Gandalf, that certainly brings back memories. Bill was bad enough by himself, but every once in a while I would throw in an ersatz "Bill" post to get things really stoked up. Roy's sense of humor didn't extend to that sort of thing; he caught me at it once, and I got in a lot of trouble.
This Greece saga is the best soap opera running right now, though Whole Foods and their finger on the scale miscue might be worth watching as well. Some interesting reading here.
@John, this is exact platform the current party ran on and won - debt restructuring and no more austerity. Greece is in no position to "demand" rather than bargaing.
Comments
Regards,
Ted
From the Montreal Gazette article, "The MYTH of the lazy Greek":
"From an unimpeachable source, the OECD, a very different picture emerges: Greeks are among the hardest-working labourers in the Western world, with 2,027 hours per worker in 2013. Italians worked 1,752, Spaniards 1,665 and Norwegians 1,408. Now what about the industrious Germans? A paltry 1,388! So much for laziness.
Ah, the wise observer will remark: the northern Europeans are much more productive. This is true. In the productivity stakes (best GDP output per hour worked), Germany is indeed first, followed, rather surprisingly by the pastis-drinking bon vivant French — another stereotype biting the dust.
Some of this productivity is due to better organization, but most of it is attributable to the use of more “capital,” that is, machines and technology. In fact, the long term trend for the Western World as a whole has for the last 200 years and until a couple of decades ago, has been quite straightforward: work less and earn more."
A picture of an industrious civilization, but with virtually no major industrial or international commercial base. It is a fractured small-agriculture, small shop-owner, tourist service oriented economy, as I said above. And we had no problems bending the rules when it suited our own cold-war purposes, did we? Or were the Greeks all really hard working at that time, but have become totally lazy since then? Is that your story, Ted?
GREECE HITS THE BOTTOM OF THE SOCIALIST DEATH SPIRAL
Kevin
Sure thing- let's tie in Obama to Greece, along with everything else that can possibly go wrong in the entire world. Give it a rest, Kevin. It gets very, very old. If I need to hear crap like this I know where Fox and Russ are.
Edit: Wait... wait... I forgot! It's all Obama's fault for "not finishing" what you-all started.
LOL. What a world it would be if that actually happened.
There's little tolerance of opposing political speech in this country today in either direction and political discussions on this board rarely ever go well.
Regards,
Ted
Ted, jeez, dude, you blew it, totally. I think you have kvetched about some here not reading fully or properly, or citing correctly. You done effed the pooch here. Man up to it.
kevindow, your notions are false equivalence, totally, one of the major banes of the day. Data, reality, all that, have a fully 'liberal' bias. Socialism, seriously?
Read up, starting with the Montreal article. Then perhaps this:
http://time.com/3939621/stiglitz-greece/
This just keeps going on and on. Asia markets paid no attention. They were all up except Shanghai again.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-02/did-imf-just-open-pandoras-box
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-03/tsipras-says-greece-needs-30-debt-haircut-for-sustainability
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/03/opinion/paul-krugman-europes-many-disasters.html