Quote:
Recession = 25% involuntary unemployment, people spend savings and sell things of value, people ride bicycles to save money, eat cheaper food, and reduce all monthly costs.
Depression = 40+% involuntary unemployment, people have no savings and nothing of value, eat only donated handouts and farm leftovers, ride bicycles because they sold the car, had to cut all monthly bills.
Read more: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/tilted-...#ixzz18aqKu5HR
|
The Great Depression... the worst in history only had 25% unemployment. You may be just fine, but I'm making 20% of what I was making only a year ago after 9 months of unemployment. I may not be in the "unemployed" category but I'm still losing $600/month in bare living expenses and I have nothing more to cut at this point. To claim this is not a recession is asinine.
Quote:
Put simply, the so called PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain) have all been quite irresponsible with public debt, which has lead to a shit storm in Greece and looming shit storms in Ireland, Portugal and Spain. Greece basically had to cook their own books due to massive mismanagement and the global financial crisis that started here in the US was the straw (1100 lb. straw) that broke the camel's back. They're getting loans and cutting spending like crazy, but it's lead investors to realize that bonds from other governments could be shit.
Read more: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/tilted-...#ixzz18arA1Se8
|
It's a little more than that. Greece is a very different culture than we have here. I spent 2 years in business to business sales in Chicago where 80% of our customers were 1st Generation Greek immigrants. In their culture, if you have trick/screw the next guy it's not a negative trait. They actually respect you more if you can screw over the next guy because they see it as you're smarter/quicker than the other guy was. This was a big part in screwing the government out of taxes. When they started going through the books they realized there was no pools for any of the houses in the entire country, realizing something was up they looked further. There was a tax on personal pools, so no one claimed them on their taxes. Once the Government started going to Google Maps for satellite pictures, they started putting camouflage tarps over the pools to avoid the taxes.
When you have a lax government who allows people to claim their own income/property/etc. with no government checks in a culture where screwing the next guy is an art and not a flaw.... you have a recipe for collapse.
Hell almost makes you want to go to your nearest IRS agent and hug him.