Dear brother and sisters,
the situation in Greece might be a bit different that your media in your respective countries depict it.
The country has undergone 20 year long deindustrialisation. Yet its remaining sectors are intact and the workforce is still healthy. The mines still can be mined, the earth is not scorched and the sea can yield fish. The supermarkers are full with products and eager sales people try to sell you their stock. what is missing? Its that little paper thingy called cash. Greek monetary supply has undergone the fiercest, fastest, worse supply constriction any other country has even gone through in modern times. Wages and pensions went down 40%, and taxes doubled.
Greeks pay taxes. Who says they do not. Actually we have the highest tax% in the whole of euro-zone. It is the big fellas who don't pay taxes. The ones who have cocktails with the ministers...
But mind you, if Greece has over spent, lived beyond its means, and tax evaded like there is no tomorrow, why did the euro crisis hit also: Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy? Did they do the same things like Greece? Did they also tax evade or were lazy or crooked like the greeks?
I can see one similar thing, and that is the banking system and the monetary system in the euro zone. It is designed to create such situations. you can run surplus of money supply for 10 years, and contract it for a few years, giving the banking system and the huge business rights and concessions on your natural resources, contracting labor rights, and leaving the people with a feeling that its their fault.
Plus, with this ingenious ploys, they managed to turn the bank losses into public debt... let the people pay. Banks are too big to fail, so, bail them out.
Mind you that not 1 euro of the bail out money ever reached the greek economy. Yet, now the people have to pay all those huge amounts back... because the banks gambled... see the pattern here?
Are there shortages in various goods? there are, and it will get worse. Is unemployement high? yes, roughly 22% but it does not account for the working ones who have not been paid for 3 months or more. Will it get worse? Yeap! Brace yourselves. It`s going downhill...
I cant help noticing that the australian brother who opened up this thread, used the same rhetoric that the mainstram media uses, I `d be really careful and filter everything that comes out of these tv channels.
Currently there are 50-60 brothers leaving Greece every month to seek employment in distant lands. I am myself looking to move out of Greece. I`ll soon join them ranks.
This system is not built to help anyone, but to keep people away from Jehovah, keeping them busy with making money and all that.
Maybe the way things are, the politicians and bankers will look for the only place left where money still exists... religion, ring a bell?